Here is the data on Chateau Oupia from Minervois:
A.O.C “Minervois”
Soil: Rocky Clay, clay and limestone
Grapes: 50% Carignan, 40% Syrah, 10% Grenache Vines: Old vines (50+ years)
This wine always throws salinity to me.
And Chateau Thivin Cotes de Brouilly:
As the name of the appellation indicates, this wine comes exclusively from the steep slopes of Mont Brouilly, which are of volcanic origin, with their complex soil of blue stone (andesite).
This may seem logical but I don’t think it works botanically. At least if you’re suggesting that the salt from the earth is finding itself into the wine.
Salt as we experience it is NaCl and what we’re really experiencing is the Na ion. Plants do not take up whatever happens to be around in high concentrations - that would simply kill the plants. So they don’t take up excess sodium or calcium just because there’s sodium or calcium around - plants are selective in what they take up. Moreover, while some things move via passive uptake by hitching a ride on some water, the ions still have to get around in the plant - the sodium or calcium or whatever would have to go from the ground into the grape itself, and there’s not a direct pathway for that to happen. For a plant to take up sodium or calcium, it has to expend energy and exchange something else. Otherwise you could just irrigate your vineyard with seawater and get salinity in your wine. More likely you’d kill your vines.
Still, proximity to salt may be a factor, but as an external source - if there is salt water nearby, or a source of some kind of salt and it is airborne at all, perhaps as dust, mist, etc., it can settle on the grapes. That is what the people in Jerez believe happens to some of their grapes to give their sherries a saline quality. And with the eucalyptus trees in Napa. Perhaps what we’re experiencing as salinity in wine can come from a combination of factors, some not having anything to do with the specific ions but more with our perception of the whole.
Salinity is perceived as both a taste and a flavor. As a taste when it’s actually sodium and a flavor in something like bacon or smoked meat in a syrah where sodium may not be the cause but it’s actually volatile compounds.
We had a really nice discussion which included a few geologists recently. The sensation of salinity and minerals can come from dissolved positive ions. The original source of these ions is of some debate. Tannin can also be involved here. Tannin binds positive ions and then allows them access to the receptors in the taste transducers. I will try and find the link. The reduced sulfur hypothesis is the weakest to me. I also include the acidity hypothesis as making a weak case.
Here it is.
I suspect salinity is linked to minerality in terms of reduced sulphur compounds in the wine, which may well be the indirect result of the vine’s ability to access both water and nutrients in the soil. Would be interested to hear Jamie Goode’s view on this topic.
I’m inherently sceptical about proximity to the ocean resulting in a salty flavour in the wine. Hasn’t it been proven that the saline twang in Manzanilla has nothing to do with being on the coast - indeed, I don’t think the difference between Manzanilla and Fino can be reliably determined by a salt character, it’s more to do with weight/texture and even then it’s hard to consistently spot the difference correctly.
In the same way it’s generally agreed that wines from a flinty soil don’t taste flinty because some sort of flintiness has been transferred from the dirt to the grape to the wine via the vine’s roots. There’s also a lot of arguement about the direct influence of eucalyptus trees giving a eucalypt character to wine. I certainly don’t believe this is the case with Coonawarra wines…tastes like a leafy Cabernet character taken to an extreme that I’d associate with some sort of mercaptan-related compound - so a volatile sulphur, which is probably soil-derived.
No idea where the salinity comes from. I most often associate it w/ high acid wines. I get it in a lot
of dry sherries, particularly finos. I find it a lot in skin-contact whites.
The Piemontese have a term for it in their Barberas (noticibly high acid): “Salado”.
It is often stated that wines grown near the ocean display a saline character and authorities claim it’s
from sea salt in the air settling on the grapes. But then, you already know my opinion on “wine authorities”.
Tom
I get a lot of salinity from wines I work with around Monterey County, not hardly from SLH, but rockier areas on the east side, in Arroyo Seco, and on the southwestern bench of Monterey Shale all yield high acid grapes that have a very distinct salinity. Sea air, rocky soil, dry climate – we got 'em. Not sure which causes it, but I like it in the whites.
I always thought it was from winemaker sweat…
[quote="GregTSalt as we experience it is NaCl and what we’re really experiencing is the Na ion. Plants do not take up whatever happens to be around in high concentrations - that would simply kill the plants. So they don’t take up excess sodium or calcium just because there’s sodium or calcium around - plants are selective in what they take up. Moreover, while some things move via passive uptake by hitching a ride on some water, the ions still have to get around in the plant - the sodium or calcium or whatever would have to go from the ground into the grape itself, and there’s not a direct pathway for that to happen. For a plant to take up sodium or calcium, it has to expend energy and exchange something else. Otherwise you could just irrigate your vineyard with seawater and get salinity in your wine. More likely you’d kill your vines.
[/quote]
Hmm. What you’re saying DOESN’T happen is what I recall them telling me IS happening down in Guadalupe. They told me the plants WERE absorbing the salt. I can’t recall whether it came from soil concentration or just in the water that the plants were irrigated with.
Typically a plant is efficient in what it absorbs. That doesn’t mean it can prevent the absorbtion of other things, as in chemicals or an abnormally elevated concentration of things normally absorbed. Like sodium or potassium. Isn’t that why people don’t like systemic soil pesticides? It seems logical that IF anything is dissolved in the water taken up, some concentration of that solution is going to move through the xylem or phloem throught the plant to the leaves. I don’t get what you mean by having to “exchange something else”. Most of the water moves up to the leaves through osmosis to be used in the photosythesis and replace evaporated water. The roots are somewhat selective in what they bind, but it doesn’t seem like they are completely efficient. Yes saltwater would kill a plant and even an elevated concentration of sodium would damage the roots and leaves, but that doesn’t mean that a moderately elevated concentration would not move through the plant.
The big question to me is how much of the sodium would end up moving into and binding in the fruit. Again since sodium is so water soluable and the entire solution could move osmotically, it seems like some definitely would. Plants don’t have kidneys and I don’t know of a part of the tissue involved in conducting the water that would act as a real sink before it reached the fruit.
That said, I just relied on a bunch of science studied long ago, and there’s a 50-50 chance I’m full of shit.
One of the most classic wines showing a saline finish is the Petite Arvine (white) out of the Valais in Switzerland.
Many (i.e. most) of my favorite cigars offer up good saline character. I can taste the connection to the plant, the land. As with this same character in wine, it’s a win in my book.
I am glad to have Greg around so I don’t have to type all this stuff out. There is not a direct chemical conduit, plants are very specific in their ion uptake. I am also with the last statement, it has more to do with our perception of a whole. This is supported in my view by the fact that the saline notes are usually in combination with various components, cured meats and minerals with some syrahs, and briny seashell type notes in chardonnay. FWIW, I get these notes in syrah from all over the place, sonoma coast, mt veeder, n. rhone, etc, and even in cali chard from the santa cruz mtns, so proximity to the ocean would appear to be an elastic concept. I can’t imagine there would ever be enough surficial deposition to ever impart a true saltiness, the concentration is just too low. I like the idea brought up that it is a way that the compounds of the wine interact with the tannins, and thus a perception of the whole.
Love this in white burgs!! Found this in some of my pessac’s
I just did a google on salinity in Mexican wine. I can guarantee you, the stuff shows salty. Both reds and whites. I don’t think it can be merely a tannin, fermentation thing. It seems like there are indeed salty wines from a lot of places, but moreso in stuff like Oz shiraz than the same variety grown elsewhere.
I’m curious about why Kenny you think there is not a chemical conduit. Pesticide can enter fruit and plants definitely absorb SOME amount of sodium potassium and calcium. So the vehicle is there. At lest for the plant to absorb the ions, short of making the connection to the fruit.
As I am basing it on just what I was told and am not sure at all I did a quick google. Here’s a relatively simple discussion, that granted does not prove any causation.
Salinity in vineyards close to the coast can be from airborne deposition. There is a clear chloride signal in most soils close to the coast. So this might help to explain the salinity in wines like Muscadet and Albarino.
Further inland, this is harder to explain. In theory the plant is supposed to regulate the intake of the major ions (especially Na and Cl), but whether they do this quantitatively is not known to me at least. Some of the examples I can think of cannot be attributed to salty groundwater I think–the Preuses vineyard in Chablis. I doubt that the roots get close to groundwater, and even if they did, the same regulation mechanism is at work.
Of course soils can dry out and precipitate NaCl (salt), which upon rewetting would tend to produce a somewhat salty brine. Soil dryout and at least some intake through roots seems the likeliest explanation. Obviously we are talking about very low levels of salt, nowhere close to the salt ( (Na,K)Cl) concentration in the soil water, which again will tend to be salty due to evapotranspiration.
Let me make it simple. If the grape doesn’t taste salty right off the vine, why in the world would it taste salty as wine? Of course Na enters, but please read Greg’s point. Another point, name a single fruit or vegetable that tastes salty in it’s fresh form?
I think salinity is most often different from “salty”. Salinity is an impression of salt, not a direct manifestation. Does that make sense? A phenomenon that to me is most akin to mineral and iron aspects.
So you tasted the grapes and they are not salty? As I said above, the salt on the grapes would only be operative close to the coast (where there is unequivocal evidence for salt deposition from the air).
I don’t see how those flavors are related to iron–they seem clearly to be related to salts in some form (NaCl, KCl)… But the interactions could be quite complex.
No I have not but I would ask any winemaker on this board to please come forward if they have tasted a salty grape. Not gonna happen.
You miss my point on the iron/mineral comment. It is well established that minerality in wine has nothing to do with the fact it is grown on rocks. Same for iron with mafic soils. Rock in a soil does not make one taste rock. Iron in a soil does not make one taste metal. They are spontaneous phenomena.