Table Of ContentUnderstanding
Vineyard Soils
Understanding
Vineyard Soils
Second Edition
Robert E. White
1
1
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
White, R. E. (Robert Edwin), 1937–
Understanding vineyard soils / Robert E. White. — 2nd edition.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978–0–19–934206–8 (alk. paper)
1. Grapes—Soils. 2. Viticulture. 3. Terroir. I. Title.
S597.G68W45 2015
634.8—dc23
2014024000
9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Printed in the United States of America
on acid-free paper
Contents
Foreword vii
Preface to the Second Edition ix
1 What Makes a Healthy Soil? 1
2 Site Selection and Soil Preparation 30
3 The Nutrition of Grapevines 67
4 Where the Vine Roots Live 117
5 The Living Soil 175
6 Putting It All Together 217
Appendices 243
References 247
Index 255
v
Foreword
There is no branch of agriculture in which soils are more rhapsodized and vener-
ated than in viticulture. It is easy to understand why this is so, just as it is easy
to understand why our ancestors worshipped the sun and the moon, feared an
eclipse, and ascribed meaning to thunder.
The aromas and flavors of wine are astonishingly diverse and at best are com-
pellingly beautiful. Few processed agricultural products command a higher price
than the world’s finest wines. Since viticulture and winemaking alone are unable
to replicate the quality of benchmark fine wines in secondary locations, it is evi-
dent that something in the environment in which the wine came into being gov-
erns its fundamental quality. What might that be?
The preferred candidate for most wine drinkers is the soil. It can be seen,
touched, measured, dug, even smelled. Vines roots penetrate deeply into often
poor, rocky soils. A vine rootstock spends its entire life (sometimes a century or
more) in one place. In certain key European wine regions such as Burgundy, one
winegrower making his wine in a uniform manner from the same grape variety
will produce a very different wine from two vineyards 10 meters or less apart. It is
hard, confronted with sensory evidence of this sort, and lifted by the emotion that
great wine provokes, not to set about constructing a mythology of soil.
Enter Professor Robert White, soil scientist. In Understanding Vineyard Soils,
he describes what soil is and how vineyard soils differ from one another. (Soils
are not rocks and are much more than an accumulation of minerals.) We learn
about the life forms in the soils and about its air spaces, structure, and profile.
vii
viii Foreword
The presence of water in the soil is of huge significance for vines: is it best to
rely on what nature delivers, or is irrigation a wiser strategy? To what extent are
vines nourished by the soil medium in which their roots are buried, and to what
extent do they draw sustenance from light and air? What task do roots perform,
and how do they do it? How does insect life in the soil favor and challenge viti-
culture? What, exactly, is a “healthy soil” for vines, and how might a winegrower
set about creating one? What do organic and biodynamic approaches to vineyard
husbandry bring, or neglect? How will climate change affect the world’s vineyard
soils?
This book will be of great practical value to anyone growing vines or look-
ing after a vineyard, but it is also essential reading for those wine lovers who are
prepared to demythologize their thinking about the soils in which vines grow. The
soil doesn’t explain the flavor of a wine, any more than thunder portends the wrath
of the gods. A vine is a plant, not a person; it does not feed but photosynthesizes.
A soil’s structural properties, its biota and the water relations it offers to the plant,
might be far more important than its precise mineral spectrum. Professor White
tells us what can be known at present about vineyard soils (hence the importance
of this revised edition), rather than what can be fabulated.
Aroma and flavor in wine are the product of a series of hugely complex equa-
tions. Soil is of great significance; so too are landforms, climate, weather, plant
genetics, biochemistry, organic chemistry, and human cultural practices. This
book will help you lay the groundwork for a deeper understanding of the complex
issues that underlie a pleasure both simple and profound: drinking wine.
Andrew Jefford, journalist and author
Prades le Lez, France
Preface to the Second Edition
What makes wine great is the interaction of the roots and the
soil. The complexity, the character, the suppleness of the wine
is reflected in that complex relationship.
■■ Quoted in Daily Wine News, April 19, 2010, and attributed to one of the
fifth-generation winemakers at Perrin & Fils, owners of Chateau de Beaucastel
in the Chateauneuf-du-Pape appellation, southern Rhone, France
I would like to start this preface by acknowledging many colleagues and friends
who have assisted in various ways in making this second edition possible. First,
I would like warmly to thank Dr. Mark Krstic, Dr. Robert Bramley, Dr. Tony
Proffitt, and Dr. Ian Porter who read and commented on one or more chapters.
In addition, I would like to thank all those who supplied material of one kind
or another that has been reproduced here—Dr. Lilanga Balachandra, Dr. Tapas
Biswas, Dr. Robert Bramley, Dr. Eduard Hoffman, Dr. Jonathan Holland,
Dr. Mark Imhof, Professor Greg Jones, Mr. Brad Johnston, Mr. Richard Merry,
Mr. Martin Peters, Dr. Tony Proffitt, Mr. Stuart Proud, Dr. Loothar Rahman,
Dr. Belinda Rawnsley, and Dr. Melanie Weckert.
My research for Understanding Vineyard Soils and the earlier book Soils for
Fine Wines has taken me to many exciting wine regions, where I have met numer-
ous charming winegrowers, as well as been given the opportunity to sample some
memorable wines. Winegrowing is truly one of the few completely vertically inte-
grated agricultural industries, where consumers are aware of, and appreciate, the
connection between the soil in which the vines grow and the seductive liquid in
the glass. Although this revised edition retains the essentials of what I have learned
from these experiences, it also updates knowledge about the soil–wine nexus that
has evolved in the past five years.
In particular, chapter 1 of this edition expands on the concept of soil health
and provides a broader picture of the diversity of soils on which grapevines grow
around the world. Chapter 2 offers more practical details about site selection and
ix
