The complete natural environment in which a wine or food is produced — soil, climate, terrain, and tradition combined into a single untranslatable concept.
From French terroir (land, soil), from Latin terra (earth). The French deliberately kept this word untranslatable because it encodes a worldview: that place shapes taste, that geography becomes flavor.
Terroir is why the same grape variety tastes different in Burgundy and California. The French insist that wine is not made — it is grown, in a specific place, shaped by specific soil, rain, and sun. Terroir says geography has a flavor.
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