Tag Archives: winespeak

Commentary

Minerality, Science and Winespeak

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the drinks business is reporting…

NUTRIENTS NOT THE CAUSE OF MINERALITY

In an article written by Sally Easton MW in db‘s April issue, she highlights research to show that it’s impossible to get minerality in a wine directly from the nutrients in the ground.

This news came to my attention via Twitter in breathless ALLCAPS. In recent years this has been a somewhat contentious issue, with scientists trying to debunk (or bunk, I suppose) the idea of “minerality” in wine.

I really don’t get why this is supposed to be surprising. Nobody thinks that a wine with chocolate notes comes from soil with chocolate in it. Or all those petrol-aromaed Rieslings are from vineyards near gas stations. The words we use to describe wine are just poor approximations of the experience of tasting a wine, not ingredient lists.

I’m reminded of this quote from Jonathan Nossiter in his book, Liquid Memory: Why Wine Matters:

But maybe, at the end of the day, we should be happy that most wine talk is so ridiculous. In a world that is oversaturated with overdetermined meaning, there’s something decidedly cheering about this mischievous drink that resists plausible description.

Commentary

“Freshness” vs. Acidity

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W. Blake Gray has an interesting post up at Palate Press advocating for using the term “freshness” in place of acidity when talking about wine so as not to scare off or confuse non-geeks.

Acidity is scary. Acidity melts your teeth, burns your stomach, gets thrown into the faces of adulterers in Pakistan. It’s not something you enjoy on your porch on a hot day; it’s the fast, painful way to get rid of a wart.

I’m sympathetic to this point, but as pointed out by a few commenters, “freshness” presents it’s own problems. Does “fresh” mean recently made, as in fresh orange juice? Can a wine that isn’t “fresh” be good?

I like the terms “crisp” or “bright” to describe high-acid wines. Bright is probably an eye-roller outside of wine-geek circles. (I recall a non-geek friend giving me a hard time for using the term “round” to describe wines, which seems perfectly fine to me.) But crisp seems like something people can “get” more easily.

The more you try to deconstruct it the more you realize talking about wine is hard. Reminds me of this quote.

What do you think?