The modern form of the notion of terroir—the idea that the place grapes are grown can imprint a distinctive signature on the wines produced—has been around for a century or more. Wine writers often have led the advocacy, waxing rhapsodic over this or that bottle, claiming on the basis of their superior palates to be able to taste the place. Wine educators have trained generations of students to differentiate, in almost ritual terms, the wines of the Côte Brune and the Côte Blonde in the Rhône Valley’s Côte Rôtie, and to cherish the variations between the upper, middle and lower rows in the great vineyards of the Mosel.