I think of winemaking as a form of translation.
Product A (grapes) is transformed into Product B (wine). Very simple, really.
As you will know, traditionally, translation involves the conversion of a source text written in Language A into a target text written in Language B, meaning that the source text can now be understood and interpreted by readers of language B. It has become accessible through translation.
Of course, any translator will tell you that translation is much more complicated than this. Admittedly, large language models now mean anyone can translate anything into whichever language they choose in just a few seconds. Yet those who have actually used Google Translate, DeepL, or ChatGPT may have noticed that their offerings, while good, are less than perfect. Their translations are stilted and overly literal. A great deal is “lost” in translation, as the saying goes. More than that, these engines are frequently inaccurate; they misgender their subjects, make misleading grammatical errors, and perpetuate racial stereotypes.
To me, one of the greatest problems with these models is their inability to recognise the nuances of language, the subtext. If Google Translate were to make a wine, it would sit happily on the shelf next to Echo Falls, I Heart and Yellow Tail. It would be an affordable, serviceable product that communicates some of the flavours you might expect of a certain grape variety grown in a particular climate. But it would not have the subtlety, complexity and sense of place that you find in a Mazis-Chambertin, a Cannubi, or an old-vine Barossa Shiraz. Turning grapes into wine is complicated enough, but capturing the unique qualities of those grapes and transforming them into a wine that expresses those qualities is another thing entirely. It requires knowledge, attention to detail, skill.
The kind of wine I am talking about here is often described as “terroir-driven”, and producing such a wine really isn’t so different from translating a novel. Literary translators must understand the environment in which their source text was produced, just as winemakers attempting to make a great wine will almost always take context into account; they will analyse the soil, aspect, climate, culture, and history influencing their vine’s growth and will attempt to capture the combined effect of all these different components in their end product. Suddenly, translating grapes into wine doesn’t seem quite so simple…
The abstract influence of these elements is equivalent to what translators pretentiously refer to as the “essence” of a source text. To capture this mysterious “essence”, translators pay close attention to what theorist Antoine Berman has called the ‘networks of signification’ hidden below the text. I.e. translators analyse subtext — the meaning beneath the words — which is supposedly formed by a network of imagery, allusion, and literary devices that the author has woven together to create the novel’s environment, tone, and mood. This intangible textual underworld can be what first alerts readers to injustice, underlying tensions, or the fact that two characters have the hots for each other. It is what Google Translate cannot capture, it is the terroir of the source text.
Terroir is a contentious term. It is also a lofty one. All this talk of wine as a translation of soil, aspect, climate, and culture — of textual underworlds — is far removed from the context in which these (supposedly fun) products are enjoyed. The average drinker thinks no more about terroir than the typical reader does about ennoblement or transposition (more irrelevant translation terms that will do no more to enhance your enjoyment of translated fiction than a knowledge of soil will allow you to enjoy a cool glass of rosé on a summer’s day). Jancis Robinson MW once called terroir ‘irritatingly vague and slippery’, Jamie Goode has described it as ‘muddy’, and many have questioned its scientific credentials. Do Riesling’s mineral notes really come from the soil? And, if so, how?
Can we even capture something so slippery? If terroir and subtext are intangible and open to interpretation, surely all this so-called “essence” (textual or terroir) risks being lost or misinterpreted in translation, if it even exists at all?
Translations are often described in relation to what has been lost. Traduttore, traditore: translators are traitors, they betray the source text in their failure to reproduce it accurately. In fact, the very best that is often said of the truly gifted literary translator is that their work is completely invisible — every creative’s dream…
Certainly, translating terroir will come with a certain amount of loss. And, honestly, maybe that’s a good thing — who here actually wants to enjoy a nice mouthful of limestone with their dinner? Winemakers can only go so far in their attempts to capture the taste of terroir because terroir, like wine itself, is nebulous and subjective. Its foundations are unstable and defy definition. How can anyone truly (another slippery word) capture the undefinable, the unsaid? More than that, no single experience of a wine is the same. Not only because context matters, but also because we all have our own unique reference points when it comes to seeing, smelling and tasting the world around us. Just as two translations are never the same, I have never seen two MWs write identical tasting notes to describe the same wine.
So, although it is easy to argue that any attempt to translate terroir will inevitably lead to loss or betrayal, those of us who live on a diet of translation theory and obscure-ish Polish fiction about driving your plough over the bones of the dead (that’s a really good read, by the way), also like to talk about what the infinite possibility of translation allows us to gain. About how the movement from a word in language A — and all the associations that come with it — to another, equally connotation-rich, term in language B, involves the coming together of all the different suggestions and meanings held within those two alphabetical constellations, transforming them into a richer whole. The translation theorist Walter Benjamin called this linguistic convergence ‘pure language’, and, in her internationally best-selling fantasy novel Babel, R. F. Kuang converted this concept into a magical force capable of anything from powering carriages to brutal murder.
I agree with Jancis and Jamie; terroir is slippery. But for me, this slipperiness is precisely what makes it so interesting, so generative. Much will be lost in its translation, but attempts to do so are also ripe with possibility. Paying attention to terroir not only invites a more attentive, creative and thoughtful winemaking practice, but also recognises the importance of maintaining soil health, promoting biodiversity, and preserving culture and tradition. Terroir may not be scientifically proven, just as we cannot definitively prove what an author is saying “beneath their words”, but attempts to interpret it give way to the infinite possibilities of transformation and creation. These are worthy goals that, I think, are worth the risk of a little treachery.
Works cited:
https://www.jancisrobinson.com/articles/what-terroir-is-not-or-rose-on-the-rocks
https://www.wineanorak.com/terroir.htm
https://german.yale.edu/sites/default/files/benjamin_translators_task.pdf
https://www.scribd.com/doc/214821625/Antoine-Berman-Trials-of-the-foreign
https://fitzcarraldoeditions.com/books/drive-your-plow-over-the-bones-of-the-dead/
Photo by green ant on Unsplash
