MINERALITY MYTH - THE WINE EXPERIENCE

hi my name is constantin baum i'm a master of wine and this is my channel where we are thirsty for knowledge and wine today i'm going to talk about a topic that is pretty controversial in the wine industry even though the science is very clear on this i'm going to dismantle the favorite term of many summer years journalists and wine buyers minerality deep chalky aromas of dark raspberry tapenade and selene minerality a pure expression of soil showing terrific inner mouth tension and minerality to the intense flavors of brooding dark raspberries pepper and spices this is a tasting note from one of the most respected wine publications in the world venus and it's kind of representative of how the terminal reality is today used in the wine industry if you type the term minerality into an online dictionary you will get the following result the word you've entered isn't in the dictionary so why is this word not in the dictionary if it's used so frequently in wine descriptions it isn't in the dictionary because it's a pretty recent invention in the wine literature from the sixties seventies and eighties minerality didn't appear books like emirpenos le goudeva or micah broadband's wine tasting didn't mention minerality even once one of my favorite books on wine the oxford companion 2 wine has a pretty clear definition on the term minerality geologists and soil scientists are clear that there can be no direct connection between the flavour of a wine and the geological minerals in the rocks that underlie a vineyard or the mineral elements in the soil that are nutrients for the vine in any case the minerals found in wine are below the threshold of sensory perception pretty clear so how do we in the wine industry define the term minerality mineral as an adjective actually means contains minerals but here's the thing lots of things contain minerals beans nuts and mushrooms contain more minerals than most wines do and still we are not talking about the minerality of that bean stew so what does minerality actually mean in order to get to the bottom of that question we need to define a few terms first so first things first what is a mineral a mineral has to be naturally occurring substance formed by natural geological processes so your kidney stone isn't a mineral secondly it has to be solid in its natural occurrence the only exception being mercury which is usually liquid and is still considered a mineral interestingly water is not considered to be a mineral but frozen water i.e ice is a mineral the second important term is rock a rock is an aggregate of one or more different minerals and non-mineral material limestone would be made up of mainly one mineral whereas granite for example would be made up of different kinds of minerals not to forget there's also rock the music genre the third important term is soil soil is the unconsolidated immediate surface of the earth it is made up of broken down rocks i.e minerals liquids gases and organic matter so i hope you got all this what is now really important for you to understand is that the vines roots grow in soil often also in contact with rocks but they are not actually able to take up the soil or the rocks through their roots they are taking up chemical elements often also referred to as minerals or nutrient minerals so the vines roots do not take up blue slate or limestone they take up stuff like magnesium potassium copper or iron because geological minerals are not the same as nutrient minerals another really important point is that the vines roots do not care whether the magnesium they are taking up is from dolomite humus or a bag of synthesized magnesium magnesium is magnesium you should also know that every plant needs pretty much the same nutrients from the soil so have you ever wondered why our orange juice or our eggplant doesn't taste or smell mineral so you're just as likely to taste the blue slate in the mosul riesling as you're able to taste the grass in a braised piece of beef well this comparison is actually not great because grass has a taste in the smell most rocks do not have a taste or smell so if you don't believe me then start licking some stones nah and this is actually from the vineyard romanee-conti but all this doesn't really matter because the rocks don't end up in the wine it's nutrients that go into the wine and they are there in such low quantities far less than one percent that it's very unlikely that they significantly change your perception of the wine especially considering that there are also acids tannins alcohol aromatic compounds and all those other beautiful things in the wine what is also kind of amusing to me is that wineries of boast about their mineral rich rocky soils stones in the soil are not necessary in order to produce great wine and it's definitely possible to produce amazing wines without any big stones in the soil if those wineries that are talking about mineral rich soils are talking about nutrients that's not something to be proud of it's very easy to add nutrients by adding fertilizer to your vineyard and one could easily argue that the best soils in the world are not nutrient rich soils but nutrient poor soils it is however true that rocks and the composition of the soil have an impact on the quality and the style of the wine i would however argue that water retention and heat retention of the soil are much more important factors than the composition of different minerals in the soil so now we know that the wine doesn't actually take up minerals from the soil and that the impact of nutrients on the smell and the taste of the wine is very small but what does the term minerality actually describe i looked at two different studies on this topic that both looked at the way professional wine tasters described wines and which ones they describe as mineral rather than not mineral and the results were that wines with high level of acidity and low level of flavor are more likely to be considered mineral one study found that high levels of free so2 are also linked to the perception of minerality and wine and there's another interesting compound succinic acid that is also directly linked to the mineral taste of wines so cynic acid develops during fermentation and it has a slightly salty bitter taste so that saltiness is often also linked to minerality in wine in summary i believe that minerals have an impact on the quality of wine but it's a very small impact considering all of the other elements that play a role when you're making wine the soil and the bedrock play an important part in the production of wine but are they as important as the exposition the climate the grape variety or viticultural practices or the amount of sunshine hitting the vines the vine needs nutrients in order to survive but it also needs water and sunshine for photosynthesis in order to survive and why are we not talking about the sunny flavor of a wine it sounds ridiculous right because no one has ever tasted the sun and every vine every wine is influenced by sunshine because vines only grow where there is sunlight so why talk about the sunny flavor of wine but if you think about it it's pretty much exactly the same thing with the term minerality right so if you want to keep using the term morality then knock yourself out i'm trying to avoid it but i'm happy for other people to use it as long as they understand what it actually means and that they understand that it's a term that is more used as a metaphor for something that is very difficult to describe otherwise so thank you for watching i hope you enjoyed this video if you liked it then please like it down here subscribe to my channel if you haven't done so already if you want to learn more about geology and minerality and all that buy this book alex mortman's vineyards rocks and soils it's a very good book on this topic my question of the day is what do you think of the term minerality do you use it do you not use it do you understand it do you not understand it whatever please comment down below i hope i see you guys again pretty soon until then stay thirsty

Channel: Konstantin Baum - Master of Wine

Views: 47,370

Keywords: Grape variety, Wine School, Wine, Red Wine, White Wine, Konstantin Baum, Master of Wine, Wine Tasting, meinelese, Somm, Sommelier, Wine making, Wine regions, Food, Wine Folly, Wine’s Cool, wine education, Coravin, Rotwein, Wein machen, Wein verkosten, Vinifizieren, Wein Tipp, Weinschule, Oenology, Viticulture, Homemade wine, homebrewing, Weinherstellung, Geology, Terroir wine, Minerality, Minerality in wine, saltyness in wine, wine nutrients, wine soil, wine minerals, wine nutrition

Id: TmYbhRKlbus

Length: 8min 40sec (520 seconds)

Published: Thu Oct 22 2020