THE GEOLOGY OF WINE

At wine tastings today you're likely to find “flinty” sauvignon blancs, “chalky” Rieslings, and syrahs that “express the essence of limestone soil.”

- BY STEVE VOYNICK

Vineyard soil has been traditionally thought to be a significant factor in determining the taste of wine. Wikimedia Commons

You'll also notice winery names like Basalt, Rhyolite, Syncline and Alluvium, along with labels that attribute certain wine tastes to “gray-blue Devonian slate” or “200-million-year-old Jurassic soil.”

But you haven't mistakenly wandered into happy hour at a geologists’ convention, you're just seeing firsthand the impact of geology in viticulture and on the controversial wine-tasting topic of minerality.

THE WINE-SOIL CONNECTION

The Christian monks who launched France’s first big winemaking effort in the Middle Ages realized that grapevines thrived at some locations but not at others. Legend says they determined the best sites for planting by tasting the soil—which made sense at a time when grapes were thought to consist only of matter that originated in soil. Over centuries, the idea that soil directly impacted wine taste became accepted.

Wine experts have long used this traditional wine-soil connection in their concept of terroir—French for “soil” or “earth” and now referring to the collective environment that gives wines their distinctive flavors. Today, vineyard owners consider soil a marketing tool that imparts a unique sense of place and a certain romance to wine that boosts consumer appeal.

Far left: Wine taste results from the complex interaction of climate, grape varieties, viticulture, wine-making styles and types of soil. Wikimedia Commons

SOIL, GRAPES & WINE