I love salinity in a wine. I guess the sensation can come in many expressions, from smoked meats that I get in some Northern Rhones, to oyster shells from some reds like Chateau Ouipa, to a distinct briny, salty note from the 2011 Chateau Thivin. The salinity in the Thivin drives me crazy; I may have killed a case already since release.
So, what is the source of salinity in a wine? Soil? Climate? Another externality like wood, yeast or other wine-making technique?
Thoughts?
I tell you what, I sure like it, Alf. I love this quality in whites.
Saline notes are usually a form of soil expression and are closely associated with specific rocky soils.
drink Muscadet!
Perhaps “usually”…but how about salinity in wines from fruit not grown on rocky soil? I’ve had a number of them over the years, so where does the sensation of salinity in those come from? I certainly don’t have the answer, but it can clearly reflect more than rocky soil in the vineyard.
I agree, and I love them, yet cannot explain why I drink so little of it. Need to fix that, so thanks!
Good question Ken. There are exceptions to every rule. I haven’t run into any examples of non-rocky soiled saline wines but I am interested in hearing more about them.
Some say that the bacon/meaty note that you get in some wines from the N. Rhone and Ribera del Duero is from Brett. I don’t know, but that aroma/flavor often has a salty quality to it.
It can come from a saline water table close to the surface. You get a lick of salt from many young Barossa reds for instance and a lot of old South Australian reds and fortifieds from the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s have a salty taste.
Kevin, I’ve never thought about this in a systematic way, but quickly searching through tasting notes I’ve written over the past 6-7 years shows the vast majority of wines in which I’ve found saline/briny components have been either Syrah (and Syrah-based blends) or Albariño. There have been others - Pinot Noir, Riesling, and Ribolla Gialla among others - but it seems to me that certain grape varieties are more likely to bring out that saline/briny sensation than others. Most of the wines I’ve written notes for have been from California but not all. Examples I’ve tasted have been from fruit grown on a variety of soils in different locales, but I’ve had other wines sourced from the same vineyards that didn’t display that saline quality to me. Of course it’s quite possible that certain types of soil are more likely to bring out that character but I believe there’s more to it than that. I’m still pretty clueless as to exactly what it is that creates that sensation in a wine, though it’s a great question.
I was tasting Raj Paar on a Novy Syrah once and he asked me if the wine had finished its fermentation in oak. I told him it had, and asked how he possibly knew that? He responded that he picked up a slight salinity in the wine and that he often got that character in such circumstances.
It is Intersting…and one of the most remarkable demonstrations of tasting acuity I’ve ever experienced.
Adam Lee
Siduri Wines
Definitely in syrah but I have tasted it from many producers. I wonder, Adam, if the fermentation in oak is usual practice?
Chard definitely, but more of a sea air briny mineral aspect.
Is there no specific compound, not salt of course, that imparts salinity? It does seem unlikely.
I think multiple sources can imbue a wine with notes of salinity. Rocky soil isn’t the only soil that has salinity. Also, there was a comment above about places where there might be a high water table containing salt water or coastal in nature can have this effect. At a tasting tonight a bottle of Cannonau from Sardinia had an obvious salty note to it. Remember that sea shell material and saline soils can be found not only in proximity to where the ocean or salt water exists today, but also hundreds or even thousands of years ago as well! I have found this true of wines from the Greek Islands, and Sicily.
I’ve noticed salinity, sometimes to a distracting degree, in a lot of Aussie Shiraz. that may explain it.
I get it from white wines grown near oceans, and that I assume comes from the fine salt spray that coats everything within many miles of any salt water coast.
P Hickner
Drank a Sandhi Rita’s Crown chard recently and it had a distinct salty edge to it. Here’s what the winery said about the vineyard -
Rita’s Crown Chardonnay
This is another very promising site located at the highest elevation in the region, hence the “Crown of Santa Rita”. Planted at 600 to 1000 feet, Rita’s Crown is on diatomaceous soils, which are fossilized seashells and hallmarks of the appellation. This soil creates a mineral thread in the wines while also adding more stress and concentrating the fruit flavors. Furthermore because of its high pitch, this site receives an extraordinary amount of ocean wind further intensifying the fruit. Our sections are south facing receiving ample sun producing slightly riper and juicier fruit than our other bottlings.
This area was obviously under the sea at one time and has an effect on the wine.
I’d guess both of these are true and that the soil is more of factor than surface spray. I don’t know about Adam/Parr’s connection of fermentation conditions and salinity. Seems much more likely that the salinity, which is probably sodium and or potassium, is simply absorbed into the plant material from the soil and more likely the water. I visited a couple of wineries in Baja and they had a number of wines with noticeable saltiness. They said it comes from the soil there and that a lot of their wines (especially reds) take on a salty note, to the point of a flaw from certain vineyards. Like previous posters, I’ve noticed some distinct saltiness in Aussie shiraz too.
I don’t know anything about chemistry or geology but when I think of salinity in wines I, like Matt, think of the wines of Sicily or the Greek Islands like Assyrtiko from Santorini, where I often find attractive salt flavours. I have always attributed this to the chalky soil and the maritime environment of those places. I don’t typically find much salinity in New World Chardonnay. Of course it is characteristic of Chablis, which, along with the typical chalkiness and minerality, I have always attributed to the sedimentary Kimmeridgian soils, full of maritime fossils.
Off topic, Ken, I like your icon. Just about my favourite album and that Peter Saville artwork is a classic.
+1 on salty Shiraz. I have always on salty Shiraz/Syrah, especially Aussie. I consider it to be an outright flaw in reds, not an expression of anything important in the soil. The subtle notes in whites can be quite different, just one facet of the minerality spectrum…
Here’s a not particularly PC blogger discussing the topic: Wine Education Topic: Salt in Wine
Along the lines of what I was thinking. Since salinity is an actual taste, if you taste it then it most likely would be actual salt. (Of course, in some cases it could be an illusion, like you get when you smell sweet.)
It’s pretty obvious that if vines are subjected to ocean spray, then salt will come in with the vines. Plants can take up actual salts from the soil and the elemental components of salts can be introduced in several ways. Of course those elements are involved with other things going on in a fermentation, so I wouldn’t be surprised if salinity could potentially go up -or- down over the course of a ferment, depending on other factors.
Clearly it depends if you talk about aromas or “mouthfeel”.
The aromas can come from anywhere, grape etc. But the mouthfeel, the saline component of wines, can only be minerals, and these can only come from the soil. Every soil has mineral components, rocky or not! These elements are decomposed by the microbiological life, by the frost etc etc, and become soluble in the water, which is then absorbed by the roots and transmitted in all the plant, including the grapes. These components are named salts, which is a chemical family, including others than the salt you put in your food, but some others give these salty flavors on your tongue.
Florian