Someone in the thread already mentioned terror, the concept that soil can influence the flavor of wine. The folks at Leaping Frog winery note that drip irrigation encourages shallow rooting in grape vines. This, they say, produces a less complex flavor than if the vines are encouraged to grow deeper roots that pass though more mineral layers on their way to finding water.
A Wall Street Journal article reported on a study that correlated flavor with nutrition. Albert Howard may have been right when he suggested that healthy soil leads to healthy plants and ultimately to healthy people.
