1. Vineyard - the environment and climate in which grapes grow. If you don't have great grapes, you can't make great wines. It all happens in the vineyards! - Emile Peynard

As the famous French wine professor Emile Peynard said, the characteristics and style of wine originate from the vineyard. The same variety can show completely different styles in different origins. The growing environment of grapes affects the quality and characteristics of grapes. Just like a pair of twins who grow up in different families and have different cultural backgrounds will develop completely different personalities and temperaments. The same grape variety will also have obvious differences in different growing environments, which will affect the style and taste of the finished wine. The environment in which grapes are grown includes the region and climate, soil composition, soil structure and drainage, and geographical environment (i.e. orientation, slope, wind, presence of obstacles, etc.). All these factors constitute the French people’s opinion when talking about wine quality. The word Terroir must be mentioned. Therefore, to be precise, Terroir is a comprehensive concept as mentioned above, and currently there is no corresponding vocabulary in other languages ??to express its complete meaning.

Although natural factors play an important role, people can also make reasonable adjustments and changes to the geographical environment with the help of science and technology, such as building artificial windbreaks and introducing irrigation systems to solve drought and water shortage problems. and soil composition also require people's maintenance and management, and planting techniques such as grape pruning, hedges, and adjustment of branch and leaf density more directly affect the quality and ripening process of grapes. Therefore, the growth of grapes not only depends on the natural environment, but also on the factors of human efforts.

In general, wine grapes have a strong ability to adapt to the environment and are relatively easy to grow. Most of the world's vineyards are concentrated in warm zones between about 30-50 degrees north latitude or about 20-40 degrees south latitude. The average annual temperature is about 10-20 degrees. Places that are too hot or too cold are not suitable for grapes. grow. The roots of grapes have a strong ability to grow in depth. The poor soil environment forces the grape roots to extend as deep as possible in order to absorb nutrients to the maximum extent, so that the grapes produced have a strong flavor and the characteristics of the local soil. The surface of many famous vineyards in the world is often covered with pebbles or gravel, making it impossible to imagine what crops could grow on them. Fertile soil often only allows grapes to overgrow, resulting in dense foliage but no quality grapes.

Finally, let me summarize in the words of a winemaker from Burgundy, a famous wine-producing area in France: "If our soil were not so poor, we would not be so rich." was not so poor, we would not be so rich!)