I still like to think of things philosophically, mainly because the science only goes so far to explain why we are so obsessed with this stuff.

I have also always thought I was tasting the minerals and elements of the soil, but learned when Jake & I did the UC Davis Winemaking course, that – no – that taste of the minerals does not translate DIRECTLY into the wine, which was again re-iterated in Portland.

HOWEVER, my understanding is that the minerals can affect the flavour of a wine in other ways. As in, the limestone in the soil doesn’t necessarily immediately offer limestone flavour in the wine, rather it effects the chemical composition of the wine enough as to alter and introduce other elements and flavours, which could include a note that might be similar to something limestone-ish.

I don’t know how else to explain being able to correctly name the soil type when blind tasting, unless it does indeed offer some sort of semblance.

(Believe it or not, what I just wrote makes sense in my head : )

Thinking about the relation of the taste of minerals to the content of the soil to me is more about how we use wine as a vessel through which to explore our relation to the objects around us. This can be based on many philosophies. The biodynamic philosophy has a very particular sense of a human’s relationship to external objects, and tends to prioritize a certain concept of the ‘natural’ above others. This, to me, is one approach that gives rise to the desire to express the nature of the ‘soil’ in our thoughts about a wine.

We all know the hedonist philosophy that drives many of the big publications – this approach cares less about idolizing a certain concept of nature and more about a certain notion of pleasure. The metaphors such people use to describe wine thus move more towards the opulent and excessive use of flavour descriptors and superlatives.

Some others may see wine as an enigmatic expression of natural processes. Such a philosophy might see the ‘minerality’ question somewhat like a fascinating puzzle about how complex natural processes are. Others might care more about the human capacity for technology, for augmenting natural processes and creating products that derive from that interaction. Such people may care more about ‘minerality’ as an end-point in a process of augmentation and manipulation.

So, I suppose for me the whole ‘minerality’ debate hinges more on philosophy and aesthetics than on science.