Okay, so I am a bit obsessed with The Long Tail concept.

If you haven’t read Chris Anderson’s book, it’s just out in paperback with a couple new chapters. Run to get it. If you have any interest in the niche-ification of the entire marketplace (and you should) then this is a Must Read. (In fact, I shared the post with Chris and he shot me a nice note after that post to say “you get it.”)

Question: What would the Long Tail look like applied (extremely) to the concept of terroir?

Terroir is fancy French way of saying that wine has a way of translating the place where the grapes were from into the bottle….the climate and geography and soil and air the grapes grew up in. (With regard to the French, and not to deny their great wine history, my friend Israeli winemaker Asaf Paz said recently, “We were producing wine when the French were still hitting each other with sticks.” Love that attitude, bro!)

Clearly people believe they can tell the difference between California wines, and French wines, and wine from Australia or Argentina…and some can even tell a wine from specific regions within those geographies, like Paso Robles or Mendoza.

And Israeli wine critic Daniel Rogov told us in a recent interview that Israeli wines have “sunshine” in them and “spice” and Mediterranean herbs.

But what if we take terroir to its logical extreme conclusion?

I’m weary of what others refer to as the internationalization of wine – the fact that most wines have begun to taste like…..most wines, lacking personality and a sense of place and surprise.

I can’t speak for you, but I want to drink wines that are highly unique in flavor and aroma, like Zeev Smilansky’s Meishar 730 Cabernet Sauvignon from Israel. I have never tasted any other Cab quite like it. I was in Napa two weeks ago drinking Cabs 6 x’s the cost of Zeev’s wine and they all tasted the same to me! BORING. This is not to say they were “bad” – just boring and status quo.

Most of us live scattered lives today. We’ve scattered from our families as we move for jobs. I, for instance, have moved more than 15 times in my almost 40 years. I feel like I am from Nowhere and Everywhere at the same time.

Maybe that’s part of the reason I want the wines I drink to be from Somewhere. To root me to a place, to a  land, to a terroir.

I think (hope) we’re seeing the niche-ification, the Long Tail of Terroir,on the horizon. A backlash against what’s status quo in wine, a reach by wine consumers for Place and Connection to places inside of places we maybe already love, like Israel or Turkey or Greece or your backyard, or wherever MEANS SOMETHING to you.

I want to know what the specific places I care about taste like through the wines I drink.

For instance, what does THAT place in the sun on that hill in the Galilee do to Merlot?

How does that rocky soil in that particular valley TASTE when it comes through in Shiraz?

How does the way the fog sits here in the mornings seep through into a glass of Pinot?

I’m talking about micro-terroir, guys. As in latitude and longitude to the decimal and degree.

And what if you could buy wine that way? Latitude and longitude. Spots on a hill, slopes in a valley, sunlight and fog.

The Long Tail of Terroir. The extreme next logical step of the concept of Place in a Bottle.

What if Israeli wineries marketed their juice, at least in part, like that.

“Here’s what the valley where David killed Goliath tastes like in Shiraz.”

“Here’s what happens to Sauvignon Blanc when you grow the grapes for it near where Jesus lived.”

“Here’s some Cabernet from near where the prophet Elijah sat in a cave and heard that still, small voice in the Carmel Mountains.”

All of a sudden Story and Place and Wine come together in new ways.

What if people in the US could sponsor grape plots in their favorite most meaningful places in Israel? 

And then taste what that place does to a grape.

Talk to me.

I’ll post a Part Two of this concept soon but wanted to get this out of me as soon as possible.