There’s always a moment of self-consciousness the first time you use a fancy new description for wine in public. Until you’ve used it a few times without being corrected, you can’t be quite sure you’ve got the meaning right, and you can’t help feeling not just pretentious but fraudulent.
Such was the case for me with “minerality”. I can’t remember the wine that prompted me to use it for the first time. There would have been something in the glass, some flavour other than fruit or flowers. I was copying other tasters I admired, guessing that what they meant by this new word applied to the wine in question, and hoping deeper understanding would come through repeated usage of a term that, at the time, invited ridicule (“What do you mean it tastes of stones?”).
When I first got involved in wine in the late 1990s, I don’t remember ever hearing, let alone using, it. Now, if you cast your eyes down a wine list, you’re never more than a few words from “mineral”, a “great minerality” or some allusion to rocks, stones or salts. Does this mean there are suddenly loads more wines that taste of these elements than there were five, 10 or 20 years ago? I don’t think so.
Certainly, its proliferation in wine literature bothers many scientists. What they find really annoying is the implication that a wine can taste of the specific soil the grapes were grown on, and that the flavours are transmitted to the grapes through the vine. Study after study has debunked this idea. The soluble elements absorbed by vines from the soil – no matter what the soil type – are tasteless at the sort of concentrations found in wine.
More credible is the idea that combinations of certain soil, climate and grape variety will affect the physiological behaviour of the plant, leading to wines with qualities that seem to fit the description “mineral”. It’s not a matter of “tasting the soil”; more that the conditions work to make wines with certain characteristics fit the admittedly vague “mineral” tag better than others.
It’s really no more complicated than comparing the qualities of certain wines to those found in certain strongly flavoured mineral waters. The precise quality of mineral can be refined to flinty, or salty, or steely, and it is generally found in high-acid white wines from cooler climates, such as chablis, champagne, Loire Valley sauvignons and chenins, Galician albariños and German rieslings. I also taste it in whites made in the warmer climates and volcanic soils of Santorini in Greece and Avellino in Campania, in cooler-climate reds, such as Loire cabernet franc and Northern Rhône syrah, and in the garnacha-based reds grown on the famed llicorella slate soils in the heat of Priorat, southern Catalonia.
I feel much the same way about another recently prominent tasting term: umami. Research sponsored by the sherry industry a few years back may have shown that the wines of the region don’t actually contain umami. But there is something akin to the experience of eating umami-rich foods such as miso, soy or meaty stews and broths in oxidised wines such as vin jaune and, yes, sherry – as well as older chardonnays and the great gran reservas of Rioja – that fits the umami descriptor. Like minerality, it’s more metaphor than technical description. But then wine – certainly wine talk – has always been as much about art as science, and, despite the risk of pretension, isn’t that part of its charm?
Six of the best mineral wines
Marks & Spencer Chablis, France 2014 (£12.50, marksandspencer.com)
Something in the Chablis area’s mix of cool climate, calcareous soils and chardonnay grapes produces a style of dry white often marked by mineral notes, matched, in this classy version, with fresh apple and a swish of steel.
Morrisons The Best Priorat, Spain 2014 (£10, morrisons.com)
Is it the llicorella soils that give the sweetly rich, chewy reds of Priorat their distinctive mineral undertow? That’s what many locals believe, and in this good-value example it adds a refreshing edge to the rosemary, liquorice and blackberry.
Loron et Fils Duc de Belmont Coteaux Bourguignons, France 2015 (from £8.99, majestic.co.uk)
This fresh, crunchy red from the newish Burgundy appellation of Coteaux Bourguignons is a Beaujolais in all but name, its bright, summer-berry fruit lifted by refreshing mineral notes.
Sainsbury’s Taste the Difference Albariño, Spain 2016 (£8.50, sainsburys.co.uk)
In vineyards cooled by Atlantic spray in Galicia, the white-peachy juiciness and blossomy floral characteristics of albariños such as this reliable staple are given seafood-matching perfection by their salty mineral acidity.
Champagne Tarlant Zero Brut Nature NV (from £36, dulwichvintners.co.uk; thesampler.co.uk)
All the best champagnes have a measure of minerals, but the impression is intensified in wines, such as this invigorating Tarlant, without added sugar. Age it for a few years, and it’ll take on some umami savouriness, too.
Waitrose Solera Jerezana Fino del Puerto Lustau Sherry (£10.29, waitrose.com)
There may not be any umami in sherry, but drinking it is certainly a savoury experience. In this case, salted nuts and Marmite on sourdough toast combine with a racy freshness for drinking with jamón and almonds.
