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gWINEGROWINGg rapegrowin Angular limestone pebbles, Vau de Vev. Chablis, France. Photo by Alex Maltman Mineral taste in wine, Minerals in the vineyard... Are they connected? BY Alex Maltman, Institute of Geography and Earth Sciences, University of Wales, Aberystwyth, Wales, United Kingdom W ine can taste of minerals? This idea has exploded onto the wine scene in just the past few years. It used to be that certain wines were described as being "steely," "austere," "lean" and the like, but suddenly "minerality" is the thing. In contrast with other terms used to describe flavor perceptions, "minerality" is often accompanied by at least an implication of the taste of minerals in wine literally, with the presumption that taste is transmitted through the vine from the rocks and soils in the vineyard. The idea is simple and romantic, and manifestly a powerful marketing device in terms of giving a wine a specific provenance. It provides a ready way of giving a wine the much-revered "sense of place," and may be part of the reason for the spectacular growth in the use of "minerals" in wine-tasting notes. However, it remains unclear what the term minerality actually means; it lacks any agreed-upon definition. Its scientific basis is at best conjectural, and flavor scientists remain skeptical about its validity. Moreover, there are many reasons why the idea of minerality being the taste of the vineyard minerals cannot work. They lead to the conclusion that mineral characters in a wine and the rocky vineyards where the winegrapes were grown are not physically connected—at least not in the direct way that is so commonly presumed. Minerality explodes into fashion There is no word minerality in geology. In the world of wine, books before the turn of the millenium had no mention of it. It seems not to have been invented back then. Even now, there is scarcely any mention in scientific papers. It has no place in the science-based schemes on wine aroma, mouthfeel and flavor. One article in the U.K. wine magazine Decanter (July 2012) employed the words mineral, minerally and minerality 116 times in just a few pages; 80 wines reviewed in the month of August 2012 on the Snooth web pages mention mineral and minerality (snooth.com/tag/ mineral/). Apparently Wine Spectator magazine now uses minerality more frequently than the terms oaky, fruity and floral (lavigne-mag.fr/actualites/vin-la-mineralite-un-concept-a-la-mode-52746.html). Manifestly, many wine enthusiasts are finding the concept useful, despite its lack of definition. Minerality: the flavor of minerals? The words normally used to describe wine-tasting sensations are self-evidently metaphorical, a way of attempting to put a flavor impression into words. Usually, most of us are little concerned about their origin. We are happy to leave it to scientific specialists to probe the technical origin of the flavor. But minerality is different. As soon as tasters perceive a flavor they call minerality, they begin thinking of actual minerals in the wine. After all, everybody knows that wine—like other foodstuffs—contains minerals, so it does seem a straightforward proposition. It seems equally obvious where the minerals come from. They are the minerals in the vineyard rocks and soils, having been taken up by the growing vine and transmitted through to the finished wine. Most wine tasters probably know that minerals are essential to vine growth and come largely from the vineyard soils, so it does all seem straightforward. A direct connection between the perceived Practically all geological minerals are tasteless. For example, the recent new edition (2011) of Bakker and Clarke's treatise "Wine Flavour Chemistry" has nearly 500 pages, with no mention of minerals or minerality. Science—so far, at least— appears to be keeping a cautious skepticism about the notion of something called minerality in wine. But in striking contrast to this, the popular wine press has wholeheartedly embraced the idea (see chablisienne.com/files/pdf/minerality_presse. pdf and quentinsadler.wordpress. com/2011/06/21/minerality-in-wineflight-of-fantasy-fact-or-terroir/). pr actica l win ery & vin eya rd MAY 20 13 63