Licking Rocks

Understanding Minerality and How Soil Function Shapes Wine

As with many of the topics that routinely crop up for discussion in the world of wine, the question of minerality, and what is actually meant by it, is perhaps best described as being of niche interest. For all that, it appears with remarkable regularity and is often paired with adjectives intended to elaborate on a wine’s structure or hint at the soil from which it came. Visit a tasting room pouring higher-acid whites, or read through their notes, and you would be hard pressed to avoid mentions of linear, racy or fresh minerality, not to mention chalky, saline or gravelly equivalents.

At best, minerality functions as a loosely constructed catch-all phrase, an attempt to give language to a combined perception of acidity, texture, restraint of fruit and perhaps even subtle reductive elements that shape a wine’s profile. At worst, it becomes untethered from plausibility, drifting into phrases such as wet slate, crushed granite or river stones warmed by the sun.