Graphite and salinity: Experimental results added

[BPP]

@John Morris

@Taylor Broussard

What is the most significant characteristic people associate with the ocean? I think that’s your answer. Surely people could be more precise. From what I understand you can perceive salinity through salt dissolving in your nose. (Carried by moist air). But again, we’re relating impressions and experiences, not precise mechanisms and exact chemical identification.

Where do you get that belief? Salt has no smell.

Just to test this, I sprayed some saline nasal spray (water and salt). The only aroma is plastic. (Guess it’s time to toss that bottle.) No mystical ocean experience.

[Matthew_King]

@Eric Lundblad

@John Morris

@Eric Lundblad

I also take salinity as sea air. As an aside, aromatics in tasting wine includes ‘inner mouth perfume’, so I’m willing to extend ‘sea air’ to the entire tasting experience, not just what I smell prior to sipping.

The air at/near the ocean definitely has salt in it. Ask anyone that’s gardened (or tried to) near a coast. I’m assuming you can smell the salt, tho I haven’t seen (or looked) for a studies to confirm this. Imo, this isn’t hugely important since, when you like one salt over another, what you’re preferring generally is the various non-salt components (that have come from ex or current ocean/sea source).

If you read the critics’ notes, the salinity is never mentioned in the aromas. It’s always further in the review, describing a taste or sense on the finish.

That’s why I made the ‘inner mouth perfume’ comment…i.e. a lot of what we think of as taste are aromatics from the wine inside our mouth.

As opposed to “outer” mouth perfume?

The outer is superfluous

[Taylor_Broussard]

@John Morris

@Taylor Broussard

What is the most significant characteristic people associate with the ocean? I think that’s your answer. Surely people could be more precise. From what I understand you can perceive salinity through salt dissolving in your nose. (Carried by moist air). But again, we’re relating impressions and experiences, not precise mechanisms and exact chemical identification.

Where do you get that belief? Salt has no smell.

Just to test this, I sprayed some saline nasal spray (water and salt). The only aroma is plastic. (Guess it’s time to toss that bottle.) No mystical ocean experience.

I should use more precise language, the impression of salinity. Ever spent time next to the ocean with some heavy breaks and gotten the impression of salt in your sinuses?

Here’s the best I can find:

“Salt spray is largely responsible for corrosion of metallic objects near the coastline, as the salts accelerate the corrosion process in the presence of abundant atmospheric oxygen and moisture. Salts do not dissolve in air directly, but are suspended as fine particulates, or dissolved in microscopic airborne water droplets.”

This is under sea spray. So there you go. Not in their air, but microscopic droplets.

[Neal.Mollen]

@John Morris

[Ed’s note: Smoked herbs??]

Dude, you don’t know what smoking herb is?

[KatrinaBI]

@john stimson

Katrina–I think you may have stated this already, but using “salinity” for the smell of the sea and the beach is a misuse of the word. I live in seattle and spent much of my life on salt water. If you were standing on the shore up here and said “ah–smell the salinity”, you’d get some funny looks and people would start moving away from you.

That happens regardless

So now I guess we have to separate out scent of the shore and scent of the sea…they are definitely different.

@John Morris

@Taylor Broussard

What is the most significant characteristic people associate with the ocean? I think that’s your answer. Surely people could be more precise. From what I understand you can perceive salinity through salt dissolving in your nose. (Carried by moist air). But again, we’re relating impressions and experiences, not precise mechanisms and exact chemical identification.

Where do you get that belief? Salt has no smell.

Just to test this, I sprayed some saline nasal spray (water and salt). The only aroma is plastic. (Guess it’s time to toss that bottle.) No mystical ocean experience.

I understand what Taylor is saying though. Certain wines (again, chablis for sure, and muscadet) prickle your nose when you sniff them. It’s the feeling of sniffing on a frosty morning. I always have associated it with salty wines too (I stand waiting to be corrected )

[Robert.A.Jr]

@Neal.Mollen

@John Morris

[Ed’s note: Smoked herbs??]

Dude, you don’t know what smoking herb is?

Two pages of sophistry, and “this” is what you focus on?!?

[David_Bu3ker]

Can we figure out how to blame this on American oak?

[John_Morris]

@Taylor Broussard

I should use more precise language, the impression of salinity. Ever spent time next to the ocean with some heavy breaks and gotten the impression of salt in your sinuses?

Here’s the best I can find:

“Salt spray is largely responsible for corrosion of metallic objects near the coastline, as the salts accelerate the corrosion process in the presence of abundant atmospheric oxygen and moisture. Salts do not dissolve in air directly, but are suspended as fine particulates, or dissolved in microscopic airborne water droplets.”

This is under sea spray. So there you go. Not in their air, but microscopic droplets.

I know what it is to stand at the seashore and breath in the air. Chemically I think it’s about equivalent to that saline nasal spray.

I wouldn’t describe that as saline. I’d describe it as the smell of the ocean and the sensation of moist air in your sinuses.

[John_Morris]

@KatrinaBI

I understand what Taylor is saying though. Certain wines (again, chablis for sure, and muscadet) prickle your nose when you sniff them. It’s the feeling of sniffing on a frosty morning. I always have associated it with salty wines too (I stand waiting to be corrected )

I would guess that’s a little CO2, actually, which often occurs in wines made in very cold cellars. You can get that in German rieslings. It’s a little prickle. Which might seem similar to breathing in frosty air. I doubt it has anything to do with salt or salinity or the ocean.

[Taylor_Broussard]

@John Morris

@Taylor Broussard

I should use more precise language, the impression of salinity. Ever spent time next to the ocean with some heavy breaks and gotten the impression of salt in your sinuses?

Here’s the best I can find:

“Salt spray is largely responsible for corrosion of metallic objects near the coastline, as the salts accelerate the corrosion process in the presence of abundant atmospheric oxygen and moisture. Salts do not dissolve in air directly, but are suspended as fine particulates, or dissolved in microscopic airborne water droplets.”

This is under sea spray. So there you go. Not in their air, but microscopic droplets.

I know what it is to stand at the seashore and breath in the air. Chemically I think it’s about equivalent to that saline nasal spray.

I wouldn’t describe that as saline. I’d describe it as the smell of the ocean and the sensation of moist air in your sinuses.

I’ll be sure to purge saline and salinity from my lexicon and reference only sea spray. For the record, I don’t think I’ve actually personally referenced salinity itself as an aroma, but do think it’s a defensible notion.

But I’ve climbed on many rocks on the coast with many a breaking waves throughout my life. And I’ve smelled a wine or two with some of those characteristics. And yes, they had the impression of salt water. I personally am not bothered by the lexicon or any comparable shorthand.

[John_Morris]

I think we can agree that dimethyl sulfide doesn’t really have musical ring.

[BPP]

@John Morris

I think we can agree that dimethyl sulfide doesn’t really have musical ring.

http://www.clash.me/OTOVKTY

No. It won’t win a Grammy.

[Nolan_E]

Also, if I started a thread every time someone said something about wine that I disagreed with…

[John_Morris]

@Nolan E

Also, if I started a thread every time someone said something about wine that I disagreed with…

You would be guaranteed to have the archetypical Berserkers thread.

[Nolan_E]

@John Morris

@Nolan E

Also, if I started a thread every time someone said something about wine that I disagreed with…

You would be guaranteed to have the archetypical Berserkers thread.

[Markus_S]

@John Morris

I guess I’ve never looked for it in reds, and after reading some of the posts here, I guess I should be on the lookout.

Still, I think in a high proportion of these cases, salinity/saline is just one more in a string of adjectives that don’t really describe anything a reader is likely to experience.

If you’ve ever swallowed sea water, you know what ‘salinity’ is. In reds I find it in norther Rhone syrah, green Spain, other ones I can’t think of right at the moment.

I think tasters are tired of simple ‘minerality’ and want to expand their vocabulary. So do you prefer ‘pencil lead’ over ‘graphite’ to describe a Bordeaux? Graphene really has no smell, but I think graphite would have a little because it is usually mixed with other ingredients for pencils.

[John_Morris]

@Markus S

@John Morris

I guess I’ve never looked for it in reds, and after reading some of the posts here, I guess I should be on the lookout.

Still, I think in a high proportion of these cases, salinity/saline is just one more in a string of adjectives that don’t really describe anything a reader is likely to experience.

If you’ve ever swallowed sea water, you know what ‘salinity’ is. In reds I find it in norther Rhone syrah, green Spain, other ones I can’t think of right at the moment.

I think tasters are tired of simple ‘minerality’ and want to expand their vocabulary. So do you prefer ‘pencil lead’ over ‘graphite’ to describe a Bordeaux? Graphene really has no smell, but I think graphite would have a little because it is usually mixed with other ingredients for pencils.

I have not problem with calling a wine saline if it tastes of salt.

I think “pencil lead” just gets everyone in trouble. If someone uses that time, I’ll lay odds that in most cases they’re referring to cedar. Still I still don’t know what graphite smells like, I have yet to be convinced that “pencil lead” is a useful term.

There is clay in pencil leads, and wax, apparently, so I suppose they could contribute some aroma.

I’ll have to visit my local stationery store tomorrow and get some really soft pencils. I could be proved wrong.

[GregT]

If someone were to put their nose into a glass of wine and remark that it had a saline quality, that was reminiscent of the ocean,

I would think they had a problem with nitrogen in the wine, probably some bacterial problem. The ocean smells of fish and seaweed and bits of rotting sea life that washed up to shore. Kind of like some lakes do.

That can’t be what people mean when they talk of salinity. I think when people refer to salinity in wine they’re not necessarily referring to salt but to something that makes the back of their mouth water in a way similar to salt. It’s not an aroma. I get it sometimes in sherry.

Fleur de sel may have an aroma but that’s because it’s from seawater. It’s not the salt itself that smells. You can get salt with truffles, smoke, etc., and it’s the extra thing, not the salt that you’re smelling.

But I’m enjoying this thread. And I agree with John’s basic premise.

[Nolan_E]

@John Morris

I’ll have to visit my local stationery store tomorrow

[KatrinaBI]

@Taylor Broussard

@Keith Levenberg

@Taylor Broussard

Surely fleur de sel has an aroma?

ummmm… no.

Well it does. But its likely not be the “sodium chloride” you actually perceive. What difference does it make though? The taste and aroma of fleur de sel can be triggered by numerous wines (and has for me). Saying it has salinity or is reminiscent of the ocean is in general terms, fairly comparable. A lot of these sensory memories all go hand in hand.

Just opened up my jar of fleur de sel and thrust it under my 14 yr old daughter’s nose and asked her if she thought it had a smell.

She said “yes – it smells briney, like the ocean.”

Also, it prickles your nose when you sniff it – something I tested myself first, and then she confirmed. It’s not like the prickle of CO2 you get in say a Fourrier wine, which makes me want to sneeze. It’s sharper – more like a very light burn, which is what I get when I smell a salty wine.

So I don’t know where any of that anecdotal evidence gets us.

But I still want to hear John’s report on the soft pencils tomorrow.