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Terroir · The Stone Library

The Stone Library

What lies under the vines.

Every rock and soil under the wines we import: what it is, what it does for a vine, and which of our growers farm on it. Each has the hatching it carries on the maps and soil strips across the site.

Chalk from the Upper Cretaceous, the same age and kind as the chalk under Champagne.
Chalk from the Upper Cretaceous, the same age and kind as the chalk under Champagne. Photo: James St. John, CC BY 2.0.

Chalk

Soft, white and porous: the remains of plankton laid down in a Cretaceous sea. Chalk soaks up winter rain and lets the roots drink it slowly through a dry summer, and it keeps the ground cool. Champagne growers credit it with the tension and the long, salty finish of their wines.

Grown on it · 5 of our producers
Limestone made of shell fragments, cut and polished.
Limestone made of shell fragments, cut and polished. Photo: Michael C. Rygel, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Limestone

Old seabed turned to stone: shells, sea-lilies and lime mud pressed hard. On thin soil the vines send their roots down into its cracks. It is the rock of the Côte d’Or, and wines grown on it tend to have a firm line of acidity and a fine, close texture.

Grown on it · 39 of our producers
An Exogyra, the small curled oyster whose cousin Exogyra virgula fills the Kimmeridgian marls of Chablis.
An Exogyra, the small curled oyster whose cousin Exogyra virgula fills the Kimmeridgian marls of Chablis. Photo: Fernando Losada Rodríguez, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Kimmeridgian marl

Grey marl and limestone from the Late Jurassic, full of a small curled oyster, Exogyra virgula. It runs from Chablis through the Aube to Sancerre, where growers call it terres blanches. Chablis owes its oyster-shell reputation to it.

Grown on it · 4 of our producers
Marl
Marl: soft, clay-rich limestone that crumbles and holds water. Photo: Sten at Danish Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0.

Clay-limestone and marl

The French say argilo-calcaire: clay and limestone together, from soft marl to stony clay. The clay holds water and gives a wine weight; the lime keeps it fresh. In the Côte d’Or the marls lie mid-slope under the hard limestone of the crest, and most of the grands crus sit where the two meet.

Grown on it · 39 of our producers
Shelly limestone, packed with broken shells.
Shelly limestone, packed with broken shells. Photo: Lumasella, CC BY-SA 3.0.

Marine sands and shells

Sand and limestone full of fossil shells, left where a sea once stood: the oyster limestone of Marsannay, the old sea floor under the Sonoma Coast, the marine sands of the Roero. Light and free-draining; growers often speak of a salty edge.

Grown on it · 10 of our producers
Freshly dug clay.
Freshly dug clay. Photo: Amadouibrahim2, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Clay

Fine, heavy and cool. Clay holds water through a drought and gives a wine body; on its own it can make one broad. Under nearly every Burgundy we pour it comes mixed with limestone.

Grown on it · 35 of our producers
As drawn on the soil strips.

Iron-rich red clay

Clay stained red by iron. It gives the deep red earth of parts of Pommard and Savigny, and growers link it to darker fruit and firmer tannin.

Grown on it · 9 of our producers
Flint (silex), broken open
Flint (silex), broken open: the glassy silica that forms nodules in chalk and clay. Photo: Adam Ognisty, CC BY-SA 3.0.

Flint (silex)

Hard, glassy nodules of silica that formed inside chalk and clay, common round Sancerre and in the Yonne. The gunflint smell people find in those wines probably owes more to the cellar than to the stone, but the name has stuck.

Grown on it · 3 of our producers
Loose, light sand.
Loose, light sand. Photo: CMetz18, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Sand

Loose and fast-draining: the vine has to work for water, and phylloxera cannot live in it. Wines from sand tend to be light on their feet, more perfume than tannin.

Grown on it · 23 of our producers
As drawn on the soil strips.

Goldridge sand

A fine sandy loam formed on an uplifted sea floor, west of Sebastopol and along the Sonoma Coast. It drains fast and holds little, so the vines stay small. Much of the Sonoma Pinot Noir and Chardonnay in the book grows on it.

Grown on it · 9 of our producers
Old river gravel
Old river gravel: rounded stones in sand. Photo: Jocelyn Kinghorn from Christchurch, New Zealand, CC BY-SA 2.0.

Gravel and alluvium

Stones and sand carried down by rivers and dropped on the flats and fans below the hills. Warm, well drained, easy to root through. The Napa valley floor is built of it, and so is the foot of the Côte.

Grown on it · 31 of our producers
Galets roulés at Châteauneuf-du-Pape
Galets roulés at Châteauneuf-du-Pape: river stones rounded by the Rhône, around an old vine. Photo: jean-louis zimmermann, CC BY 2.0.

Round river stones (galets)

Stones rounded by rivers. At Châteauneuf-du-Pape they are the galets roulés, quartzite cobbles the old Rhône spread over the plateau; they are said to store the day’s heat and give it back at night. In California, river cobble runs through the benches and terraces.

Grown on it · 6 of our producers
Granite
Granite: crystals of quartz, feldspar and mica, grown slowly underground. Photo: Strubbl, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Granite

Crystalline rock that weathers to a coarse, acid sand. Poor and quick to drain. The Beaujolais crus grow on it, and so does southern Oregon.

Grown on it · 3 of our producers
Pelona schist from southern California
Pelona schist from southern California: rock that splits into thin, shining sheets. Photo: Kevin M. Gill, CC BY 4.0.

Schist

Rock squeezed until it splits into thin sheets; the roots work down between the layers. It is the ground of Faugères in the Languedoc, and turns up in the Beaujolais and in the hills of Alto Piemonte.

Grown on it · 3 of our producers
Shale
Shale: hardened mud that splits into thin layers. Photo: James St. John, CC BY 2.0.

Shale and sandstone

Hardened mud and sand in thin beds: the Franciscan rock of the California coast, the galestro of Chianti, the sandstone of the Languedoc.

Grown on it · 12 of our producers
Porphyry
Porphyry: volcanic rock with large crystals set in a fine red groundmass. Photo: James St. John, CC BY 2.0.

Porphyry

Old volcanic rock with crystals set in a fine, reddish ground. It lies under the vineyards south of Bolzano and, in Alto Piemonte, under Bramaterra and the hills round Sizzano.

Grown on it · 3 of our producers
Andesite, a grey volcanic rock like those of the Sonoma Volcanics.
Andesite, a grey volcanic rock like those of the Sonoma Volcanics. Photo: James St. John, CC BY 2.0.

Volcanic rock and ash

Ash, tuff and lava broken down to soil: light, porous and often thin. In the book it runs from the mountain vineyards of Napa and Sonoma to Campania.

Grown on it · 25 of our producers
The 2002 lava flow on Etna
The 2002 lava flow on Etna: fresh black lava, centuries away from becoming vineyard soil. Photo: Abxbay, Public domain.

Etna lava

Fresh lava, black and broken, takes centuries to become soil. On Etna’s north face the vines grow on flows of different ages, and the growers name their contrade by them.

Grown on it · 1 producer

Taken from the domaines’ own descriptions of each wine’s ground; a producer appears under every soil named for at least one of their wines. Photographs are of the rock type, not of the vineyards. Back to Terroir →