Terroir Soil Mapping Program

Surface and subsurface soils are neither uniform or random across the landscape. Terra Spase combines years of experience in mapping soils with a unique set of tools, including our proprietary Terroir Soil Mapping Program, to describe this variability.

Terra Spase has a staff of trained soil scientists who sample, describe, and interpret soil variability in your vineyard. Using site specific data, Terra Spase maps the spatial soil relationships that characterize the terroir of your vineyard and can link them to an array of weather, remote sensing and wine analytical data.

Terroir, Terra Spase’s in-house software, utilizes a differentially corrected global positioning system (DGPS) to locate soil pits within an accuracy of 1 meter. Accurately located sample sites are the foundation of our spatial data management systems and map based soil data products.

Up to 25 different soil variables including texture, depth, rock fragments, pH, potassium, and salts can be presented in individual and combined color contour maps for each vineyard site. In addition, color soil profile diagrams are produced for each soil pit to permanently record observations and to quickly show how physical characteristics may contribute to soil vigor potential.

Our soil vigor potential index combines up to 25 different soil physical and chemical variables. This index has been shown to correlate to areas of reserve quality fruit production in both Rutherford and Carneros Appellation vineyards. Detailed contour maps of our soil vigor potential index are produced for your vineyard that can then be combined with other vineyard data using GIS software.