About

“Terroir” is a French word with no English translation. In French it means “a sense of place” in a wine; in other words a wine from grapes in any given vineyard will have its own unique character. The Terroirists don’t blow anything up, but we actually promote world peace through the world’s greatest gift: grapes and the delicious fermented beverage they become.

Terroirists is made up of multiple levels. At the molten core are three [former] Walla Walla wine making students pursuing the dream. In the mantle are a variety of guests of whom many are also wine making students. On the crust is the wine industry itself, mainly that of Walla Walla, and in the vibrant cities are the readers. Go ahead and take for granted all of the hours we put into creating this content, because honestly, we’d do the same.

The concept behind Terroirists is a multi-dimensional wine experience which should be both entertaining and educational. Unlike most wine blogs Terroirists is not just one person’s written opinion, but it is a collection of information as well as opinions from many different perspectives. We hope our passion for wine shows through in the content of this blog, and we hope to help create passion for wine in those who currently drink White Zinfandel.  An explanation of each category is below:

Cork Dorks United: Cork Dorks United is a bi-weekly tasting group organized by Steven. The group meets in one of the local wine caves and strange things happen. Themes change with every meeting and each person is responsible for bringing one’s own wine. The tasting is always completely blind (with the exception of the wine which one has supplied, of course). Numerical scores are not given for CDU reviews, but the wines are instead ranked against each other, and on a good night, hopefully a couple recommendations will result. (CDU is on indefinite hold due to a lack of geographic proximity among members)

Council of Variable Members: CoVM is a spontaneous blind group tasting with the goal of assigning a numerical score on the 100 point scale to a single wine. The idea behind CoVM is that no one person’s opinion should have too much power, and therefore there are always at minimum three different reviewers who score the wines independently of each other. The review is written jointly and published that night. One person must select the wine, and therefore his score is given as unblind, however it still counts towards the CoVM average score. The only way to truly judge a wine is to taste it blind, which is why we note who selected the wine in case of any bias. (CoVM is also on indefinite hold – don’t worry; there’s plenty more to write about)

Mike’s Microbiology: A section of lengthy articles on the science behind the beverage written by our resident microbiologist, Mike.

Steven’s Shenanigans: Musings from the eccentric and complex inner-workings of Steven’s mind. Only dare approach after at least 5 hours of decanting and a few glasses of bubbly.

Eric’s Unhinged Insights: Every once in a blue moon I feel the urge to put pen to paper about wine, or fingers to keyboard. After partaking of my brain droppings I suggest waiting at least 2 hours before swimming and 3 hours before lifting anything over 51 and three quarter pounds.

Wine Travel: This section consists of reviews of tasting rooms, wine bars, restaurants, and whatever the hell else we feel like reviewing.

The Terroirists Show: We all like to sit down from time to time and put ourselves out there a little bit more. This is the result of that. This brainchild is the result of the Master of Ceremonies, Eric Noreen. In this portion of the blog you will see us reviewing wines on camera and sometimes you may see some of our wild and crazy antics out on the road in our Terroirists at Large episodes.