2. The War on Terroir

Terroir - a word and approach more associated with wine making than whisky making has had its critics and detractors since the first day Mark Reynier announced he was building a distillery on its very premise. In this episode of Terroir-Driven: The Waterford Whisky podcast, we hear from whisky industry experts and enthusiasts who paint a picture of a whisky industry that has followed a certain approach to whisky making for many years and how Waterford Distillery’s pursuit of a barley and a flavour-forward process has been met with raised eyebrows and criticism from whisky producers and consumers alike. We’ll hear how early criticisms led to the establishment of a scientific study to determine conclusively whether terroir has a verifiable impact on whisky’s flavour and we’ll pose some of the criticisms leveled against this terror-driven approach to those inside the distillery.

Om Podcasten

Influenced by the world's greatest winemakers, Waterford Distillery obsessively brings the same intellectual drive, methodology and rigour to single malt whisky. But what does that actually mean? It means applying strict production criteria to Irish barley and whisky production. It means sourcing barley from individual Irish farms - some organic, some biodynamic. It means malting, fermenting, distilling and maturing those farm crops in complete isolation - from field to barrel. The distillery showcases the barley flavours derived from individual Irish farms, terroir by terroir, in its Single Farm Origin series. But the ultimate goal is to one day use these individual terroirs to produce world’s most unique, complex and compelling whisky. In this podcast series, the award-winning whisky communicator Barry Chandler has unfettered access to the distillery and its people, to break down each step of the production process from growing the barley to bottling the whisky so that you, the whisky fan, can understand about where flavour is created and what the possibilities are when a distillery chooses to obsessively explore that prime raw ingredient of single malt whisky: barley.