Bad terroir

Of course. Paso Robles Riesling would be one such example. More generally, growing the wrong grapes in the wrong places will do it.

Mark Lipton

At one level that is certainly true, but it is not the way the word terroir is usually used, is it? I don't think you would hear "Paso Robles is a bad terroir for Riesling". It would probably be "Paso Robles is not a good place to grow Riesling". In fact I am not sure I have ever read "XXXXX is a bad terroir"

I think the reason is that terroir, as opposed to more objective and simple concepts like soil and climate, comes as a package, and normally implies a tradition of wine production. That tradition would naturally imply terroir is good. One terroir might be better than another, but they would probably both be used for grape production so neither would exactly be bad.

All this is a relatively recent thing. The term "terroir wine" used to imply something that was rustic and unrefined.

These subtleties of use are one reason I normally prefer to steer clear of the T-word. But it does have its uses.