Good thread. I love this quality, especially in whites. Besides Chablis, I have been finding some in italian whites like this one:
2011 Campogrande Cinque Terre- Italy, Liguria, Cinque Terre (11/26/2013)
This was interesting. Dark yellow, light orange in color from the 4 days of skin maceration. Slightly hazy. Tart, dry and crisp with some citrus, ruby red grapefruit, apple and pear. Some herbs, almost a chicken broth note and some saline. Different, interesting and enjoyable. A blend of bosco and albarola.
Not sure I believe that it is well established that “minerality” has nothing to do with being grown on rocks. At one level, yes, since, soil is generally always decomposed rock, whether in place, or brought in via sedimentation. So rocks per se are not required. However, all soils continue minerals undergoing weathering (try growing a vine on pure peat, for example). Certainly the dissolution of these minerals impacts soil chemistry, regulating at least in part the water that the plant roots see. Admittedly the plants regulate at a certain level what gets taken in (as I commented on above)–they certainly don’t draw in the ambient salinity of the soil solution. But I am not aware of any proof demonstrating that there is zero impact on the plant functioning. Remember that we are discussing sensory thresholds that may be in the ppb level, so it would not (potentially) take much to impart flavors and or effects.
The original discussion on minerality pointed out rightly that a typical clay mineral (like kaolinite) does not make its way directly into the plant. The solubility is too low, and the minerals dissolve anyway. But again, there can be complexation of the elements making up these minerals by organics (thus raising the solubility at least somewhat), or these trace amounts can be taken in as part of the overall charge regulation. In either case, we are potentially talking about low to very low levels.
Proof for this? Well, at this point mostly this is speculation (although certainly much is known about soil chemistry). However, it is to some extent a testable hypothesis, but of course nobody out there is funding such research. Again, the key is to start looking at minor to trace levels of the various ions derived from the minerals (not major elements, like Bordeaux and UC Davis seem to have done).
But we’re not just eating the fruit. The make-up of finished wine is different, since it obviousky tastes different than a grape. The flavors get extracted, concentrated, and there are chemical changes. But anyway, stuff like celery, carrots, potatoes, chickpeas, artichokes, spinach, even melon can have salt flavor components and they all contain sodium and potassium. Typical grapes may well not have much sodium (or potassium) or taste salty. But we are talking about minority situations where the amount of sodium available in the soil is abnormally elevated. As we’ve all agreed plants absorb sodium. So far none of us have come up with a concrete reason why that level of absorbtion can’t fluctuate. Combine a small elevation in concentration within the plant, then put it through extraction and concentration. It’s also possible that as the sugar ferements removing overt sweetness, that other flavors including saltiness are enhanced. Grapes also contain glutamic acid which can convert to glutamate. Glutamates (as in MSG) enhance salt flavors, though the sensation still requires the salt. I’m pretty sure that glutamic acid and glutamates are a proposed source of the umami in wine. I’m not sure but the fact that a grape doesn’t taste salty doesn’t prove anything.
I don’t know if this is true and it doesn’t make sense to me. I would actually say the converse that salty is a manifestation of salinity. But that’s semantics. Can something be saline without possessing salts (of different composition)? Isn’t salinity expressed as the amount of salts present per volume? As in 35g/L for saltwater. While actual iron might not contribute to the metallic/mineral taste in wine, sodium and potassium do contribute to the salt flavor in food, even plants which absorb it.
I found a quote by Emile Peynaud, who said: “Wine contains all four basic tastes. The sweet taste is provided by the alcohol and, where present, its sugars; the sour taste comes from the free organic acids; the bitter taste from the wine’s phenolic compounds, generally tannins; and the salt taste from the salts. In tasting wine, these four tastes are not perceived at the same time, they become apparent one after another.”
I don’t doubt that an impression of salt can be created by other than salt, but it still seems likely that elevated saltiness has its root in salts themselves.
I’m going to go ahead and stop you right there. I don’t need a discussion of soil chemistry as I have several soil chemistry and specifically clay chemistry courses in my graduate work (geotechnical engineering). Clay does not have solubility, and regardless it is not the SiO4 silica tetrahedra in a flat crystalline geometry that the plant desires, that composition is entirely inert. The mineral cations are taken by the plant from a layer of water around the clay particle (containing several layers of the aforementioned silica tetrahedra) called the diffuse double layer. This water contains many minerals because the net negative charge of the clay particle demands it.
Regardless I’m still not buying any direct causation of flavor to specific minerals in a soil that in and of themselves have that flavor. It just doesn’t happen anywhere in nature so why would grapes be any different? The complexity of wine comes from the compounds of fermentation, not the elemental minerals in isolation.
John you need to correct your post above to quote correctly, but I still disagree. In particular nothing you mentioned has a salty flavor in native form. Furthermore, I still completely disagree that there would ever be enough Na or K in solution to impart saltiness. Until someone chimes in otherwise with lab data, just don’t buy it. If it were, I highly doubt this thread would even be discussed. That sort of simple chemistry would be wine 101.
True enough. In fact, I had a theory that the cation exchange capacity of the clays in the soil explained some of the differences I noted at least between different vineyards in Chablis. The contrast was between nearly pure carbonate soils and those with a higher clay content.
Still, these ions are in the diffuse double layer, as you say, balancing the clay charge. But in the end, the cation population on the exchangers reflects at some level what is in the soil solution (more Na+ in the soil water, more Na+ in the exchangers), so it is not as if there is no influence of the soil water…
What does not happen in nature? You just admitted (I thought) that the plant takes in the ions, which have their ultimate source in minerals that have dissolved in the soil (or I think you did). So why would minor to trace uptake of cations and anions not potentially affect what goes into the grape? I would not argue that this reflects elemental minerals in isolation, however–doubtless the fermentation process would modify all this.
So why do you think Peynaud said what he did? Both he and the research in the link I posted seem to differ from what you’re saying or at least postulate something different.
I’m not sure what you mean about the existence of this thread being significant. ???
Is it just your opinion that nothing (fruit,veggie) has a salt flavor in native form? We’ll just have to disagree about a salt taste in raw form celery, potatoes, carrots etc… They taste of salt to me. In fact, it’s coincidental but my wife has been eating a ton of celery lately and I munched some in the car with her on Sun. right before I read this thread. I commented that it tasted salty. Celery definitely has a sensory level amount of sodium. Look it up.
If you think there is not actually a true salt flavor in any wine, or that it is not a product of salts, what is it and where does it come from?
This is a wineboard not a research project so you’re not getting me to research lab data. But some more secondary commentary, including a sound interview in the second link:
None of this debunks your assertion that people sense minerality (or even salt) in many cases when the most obvious compounds are not actually present. I am just suggesting that in extreme cases salt actually is present at a sensory level. I would also say that minerality as a flavor is a much more vague and general term than salty.
Not at all, quite the opposite. Glad to hear from a winemaker though. Is it enough to impart a direct impression of salt though? That is the question I’ve posed. If so, I will be very pleased to stand down.
We measure K in the grapes from each of our vineyards and don’t find any correlation with “saltiness” (or acidity). For us it is a vineyard specific characteristic and seems independent of the chemistry that we have measured to date.
Some varieties seem more disposed to express saltiness (Syrah possibly the most) but we have seen it in all 3 varieties that we grow (Syrah, Chard and Pinot) on certain vineyards.
I think to get a salty taste, you are going to need the chloride around. So K+ in some other form probably will not express this character.
Bear in mind that when one tastes salt, it is normally all in the dissolved form (unless you lick a salt crystal, at which point you are still dissolving the mineral). So one is tasting Na+ and Cl-, or K+ and Cl-, not the mineral itself. So anywhere these ions are present, a salty taste is possible. All of these ions are taken up by the plant, even if the levels are regulated by the plant…
John, I stand corrected at the least on the Mexican wine issue. The concentrations of 0.6 and 1.1 g/L measured in the wine is beyond the general threshold of 0.6 g/L or 0.01 molar threshold often cited in the research I looked at. This particular Mexican study you linked says typical ion concentrations in Mexican wine are 2 to 3 times the concentration shown in the international wines. It should be noted this would render the concentration well below the perceptible threshold. However, in further reading there is a lot of complexity in how sweet sour bitter salty is perceived based on reference, e.g., your saliva has salt but you don’t taste it until you rinse your mouth with distilled water. In a similar fashion, it is possible the other compounds in wine could very well modify your receptors such that a Na level below the perceptible level could be detected.
So as it seems, it is possible for Na to directly cause salinity in wine. However, typically concentrations are well below the perceptible threshold. Hypothetically, various compounds, tannins, in wine may block receptors and provide the necessary reference disassociation to allow the actual sensation of the salt itself.
I was wrong at least partially, and I would say it’s quite likely I was wrong completely.
Alfert, there you have it. Don’t season your food, just drink Thivin.
Sheez, you nerds have me so confused that I’m drinking out of the bottle and looking at porn!
Interestingly, the bottle I popped is a damn brett bomb, and it is certainly throwing some salt and other nasties my way. Not sure if I’m gonna tough it out cause I’m pissed with two bottles in a row, or just switch to Islay Malt, which throws serious salt and peet.
I believe that when you taste NaCl, you’re sensing (tasting) only the Na+ and the Cl- doesn’t play a role. The receptors are sensitive to K+, as well. I assumed Potassium could be part of salinity, although Kevin’s comment suggests otherwise.
Well that’s not really what Kevin said (not to put words in his mouth). Potassium (and I do think it has to be chlorinated and not just free) may not make a wine taste noticably salty in part because KCl has less of a salty taste than NaCl, and the K/KCL concentrations may be lower than threshold. So there wouldn’t be a noticeable connection between salty wine and elevated potassium. But KCl would technically add to the salinity (by definition) and along with other factors (predominantly NaCl) contribute to the flavor of salt. Most salt substitutes have some KCl and a little NaCl. Some contain glutamates, which might actully be produced in vinification too, so ther’s that. Btw, now that we’ve started on the salty thing, how about soy notes in wine? What is used to SO2 treat wine these days? Are potassium or sodium containing compounds still used? If so, they would be contributing some free K and or Na to the wine.
Kenny, I see where you are coming from. In most cases the plant clearly isn’t going to uptake the amount of sodium necessary to make a wine salty. But I think it does happen and Mexico and Southern Oz seem to have examples. I do agree with you that it does not happen in near as many wines as people might perceive as salty, and for other minerals sensed there might not be presence of the compounds originating in the soil at what is a perceptible level. Even with the salt, since it is such a basic flavor and one of our primary 4/5 tastes, other compounds are probably affecting the receptors and sensation as well as sodium. I love the flavor chemistry in wine. It’s interesting that with all the technology and research there’s still so much in the grey area or being discovered.
I’m still interested in trying to figure out why Parr would connect perceived saltiness to a wine finishing fermentation in barrel?