The Lithosphere - How We Got Our Name!
All of Earth’s spheres interact to shape its surface. Resting above the mantle and including the mantle’s uppermost layer is the Lithosphere.
It is all very complex but utterly fascinating. It is a challenge for us mere mortals to try to understand something of the shaping of the Lithosphere; the ancient history of the earth, and the place we call home.
There is a fierce battle of immensely powerful forces that have been raging in slow motion for billions of years; the lithosphere, hydrosphere, atmosphere, and biosphere are in constant turmoil shaping mountains and valleys, plains and plateaus, gorges and canyons, and the materials that make them up.
In the book “The story of Earth and Life” (A Southern African perspective on a 4.6 billion year journey) the esteemed writers explain why the Winelands in South Africa are so perfect for the cultivation of grapes.
Here in the Western Cape, we live in a region where the Lithosphere is known as the Cape Supergroup. Long, long ago, our awe-inspiring mountain ranges lay submerged under the shallow Agulhas Sea and consisted of granites and metamorphic rocks. An extensive glacial period followed by the inevitable melting of the ice resulted in the deposition of fine muds in shallow embayments and glacial lakes. These fine-grained sediments were ingrained with a diverse collection of marine invertebrate fossils, including mussels, snails, octopus, and aquatic arachnids.
The deepening of the Agulhas Sea brought about the deposition of deeper water, fine-grained sediments of the Bokkeveld Group. The mudstones of the Bokkeveld Group weathered at a much faster pace than the sandstone of the Cape Supergroup and so the valleys were shaped. The meeting of the two Groups formed the fertile soils on the slopes and in the valleys on which the vines of the Cape Winelands are cultivated.
It is truly too incredible to comprehend that this remote Southern tip of the world was destined to become the wine-producing phenomenon that it is today.
Terror
With that background in mind, we now look at our terroir.
Terroir is a group of vineyards, or vines, from the same region, which belongs to a specific appellation sharing the same type of soil, weather conditions, grape varieties, and winemaking savoir-faire; (flair or style). These factors all contribute to giving a specific, unique personality to the wine, much as if it were a person. All of these are necessary for terroir. Not just one of them, all of them.
It is very important that the soil/climate/plant relationship is planned and maintained. Equally important is careful management of irrigation, canopy control, and selective fertilization. The wrong cultivar, too much irrigation, bad canopy control; in short, bad vineyard management erases good terroir.
