I think your Crypt thread needs new “rock” descriptors:
So accustomed are we to associate odors with plants and flowers that we can scarcely appreciate the fact thr.t certain minerals and ores give off, under certain circumstances, a distinct and characteristic odor. If an ore of arsenic be rubbed until it becomes slightly heated, a distinct smell of garlic will be observed, which, on heating the substance before the flame of the blow-pipe, becomes still more apparent. This odor, which is characteristic of the compounds of arsenic, is termed alliaceous. When selenium or a selenidc is strongly heated, a distinct smell of decayed horse-radish is perceived. This smell, which is peculiar to burning selenium, is known as the horse-radish odor. The odor proceeding from burning sulphur, or the roastiug of a sulphide, readily reveals the presence of tllF_t substance, and is termed sulphureous. When certain varieties of quartz and limestone are strongly rubbed, they give off the odor of rotton eggs. This peculiar smell is occasioned by the evolution of sulphureted hydrogen ; and substances which possess this property are termed fetid.
From many years ago - my geologist/chemist wife smelling freshly fractured rock in the Roter Hang with Walter Strub. She did the same thing in the Mosel. Had me do it too. The freshly fractured rocks smelled different.
I’ve marveled in the past at James Molesworth’s ability to distinguish between different singed woods. Now he has introduced another tasting note dimension with roasted wood.
2019 Domaine de la Barroche Chateauneuf du Pape Fiancee
“This delivers a big burst of juicy raspberry and boysenberry purée flavors, lined with dark licorice and pastis notes while roasted applewood and fruitcake fill in through the juicy, yet focused finish. Excellent underlying energy throughout, with a long bolt of graphite giving it all support.” – James Molesworth
What is “underlying energy”? Is that different from radiating energy? from surface energy?
What is “a long bolt of graphite” supposed to taste like? (And how does he know what it tastes like?) Does he mean natural (mineral) graphite or synthetic graphite? The graphite in a traditional cedar pencil?
So many reviews by “critics” drive me up the wall. Terms like “white flowers” or “blue flowers” (no-one ever seems to refer to “yellow flowers”, which are far more common), “nervous energy” or “racy” (are we talking about tasting Thoroughbreds here?), etc. If referring to jasmine flowers (versus, say, white yarrow flowers), why not say so? If you mean acidity or light body/density, why not say so?
Cedar is most certainly not an equivalent of graphite. Not all pencils are made of cedar. Pencil “lead” is graphite mixed with a matrix (e.g., clay, synthetic polymer, or wax), and I suspect any smell you might find in, say, a container of mechanical pencil leads is due to the polymer that’s used to make these.
Wet slate may have a smell–think of a slate patio after a rain–though whether that smell is due to the slate or to microorganisms living on/in the slate, I don’t know. How different it is from wet granite or other minerals, I also can’t say.
I seem to have been outvoted on the issue of stone smells, so I won’t take issue on that.
Maybe you didn’t find it, but up thread, I posted tests (with photos!) on the smell of graphite. It seems there may be some faint aroma from the wax, clay or polymer used to make pencil lead, but if you sniff pure powdered graphite, there is no smell.
As I postulated up thread, I think in most cases “graphite” is used as a wine descriptor because the taster associates an aroma with pencils, but what they’re really smelling is cedar. If you go back several decades, “cedar” was a common descriptor for Bordeauxs. Then people started saying “lead pencil.” Soon it became “pencil lead” or “graphite,” which has a certain faux precision to it.
I think you’d find it VERY hard to detect any aroma from the pencil lead (wax, clay or polymer) when you sniff the sharpened end of a pencil. The wood will predominate.
The family of pencil aromas shouldn’t be very controversial because it’s one of the most prominent and easy things to pick out in wines that have it. It usually isn’t pure cedar because pure cedar (think closet hangers) has its own smell, which is different, and in those cases it’s easier to mention cedar than pencils. When people mention pencils, they’re not talking about the cedar only, nor are they talking about the smell you’d get from taking a whiff of the end of the pencil, but rather, I submit, the eternally memorable smell of a pencil sharpener and the pile of pencil shavings. Whatever scents the stick of graphite might have or have not, the sharpener and the shavings with the graphite and the cedar have an unmistakable smell of their own. I’m imagine the chemists could explain how the machinery of a pencil sharpener and all the grinding action produces that effect. But for lay purposes and for the exercise of linking wine-smells to smell-memories, pencil shavings is one of the better terms we have at our disposal. Everybody knows what it means whether we can explain it or not.
Crushed stone is a somewhat more difficult one, but I have used it, and found the sensation replicable when others use it. It might require more imagination than pencil shavings, and might even require a bit of hallucination, but it is, without question, a shared hallucination, so here too again the description serves its purpose even if we can’t explain it.
For something to have a smell it needs to release volatiles. At room temperature I don’t think most minerals including slate or flint release volatiles. However such minerals in the environment (like slate paving) most likely have microorganisms (bacteria, fungi, algae) growing in/on them and those organisms probably do release volatiles.
I think we are in agreement on graphite. Nonsensical as a descriptor for wine aromas. Cedar is, of course, perfectly reasonable, and the different cedar species (and junipers and other plants, like some members of the mint family) produce in common a terpenoid which is what gives “cedar pencils” their distinctive smell. But going from the aromatics of “(cedar) pencil” to the (nonexistent) aroma of “graphite” tells me that the person doesn’t know what they’re talking about, and when I see “graphite” in a wine descriptor…
“Graphite” started showing up in wine notes because we used to say “lead pencils,” and then the pedants started replying to all those notes with, “ACKSHULLY pencils are made from graphite, not lead now, you big stupid!” so people got cowed into submission and tried to preempt the objection by saying graphite only to run into, “ACKSHULLY graphite has no smell…”
