(Academicowino) - One of the most controversial aspects of the wine tasting note is arguably the concept of minerality. There is little scientific consensus regarding what minerality actually IS, and there doesn’t seem to be much (if any) peer-reviewed science supporting a chemical or physical link from the wine to the minerality descriptor. In fact, in 2013, one geological study found no evidence to support a link between soil characteristics and minerality flavor/aroma characteristics in wine. The support for minerality in wine appears to be primarily anecdotal, though the debate certainly isn’t over in the scientific world.

So what exactly is it about wine that provokes this “minerality” description. Chemical analyses aside, what is it that is being tasted that triggers the use of the word ‘minerality’ in the description of the wine?

Are there cultural differences in regards to the use of the ‘minerality’ in tasting notes? While scientific evidence is lacking, some studies have found that wine professionals from different parts of the world experience wine tasting differently, resulting in markedly different descriptions for the same wine. It is possible that the history and teachings of a specific wine region may churn out wine professionals with certain expectations for how a wine is supposed to taste, as well as a certain familiarity for a particular style of wine made in that region. Taking these professionals out of their “territory” and plopping them down in a completely new region where wine styles are very different might result in markedly different descriptors being used compared with wine professionals trained in that new region.

A new study published in the journal Food Quality and Preference aimed to dig a bit deeper into this minerality controversy, and set out to evaluate the effect of culture and the methods through which specific sensory characteristics are perceived on the assignment of “minerality” to a given Sauvignon Blanc wine. In other words, they aimed to look at what flavor and/or aromatic characteristics of the wines resulted in a ‘minerality’ mention in the tasting description and are there cultural differences in the assignment of ‘minerality’ to the wine.

Methods

For this study, a group of 32 French and a group of 31 New Zealand wine professionals (i.e. winemakers, wine producers, and wine judges) were recruited for this study. All wine professionals had experience tasting and rating Sauvignon Blanc wines.

All participants were asked to taste 16 Sauvignon Blanc wines from the 2010 vintage over two different sessions. Half of the wines were from New Zealand, while the other half were from France. All wines were 100% Sauvignon Blanc.

The first session was to determine a “global perception” or overall score and sensory description for each wine. The second session was similar to the first in terms of providing an overall sensory description and score for the wine, however this time, the participants were asked to evaluate the wines both with and without a nose clip.

During all tasting sessions, participants were asked to perform a sorting task as well as a descriptive rating task. In other words, they were asked to sort the wines based on whatever similarities they thought were most fitting, and then they were asked to write a detailed description of each wine.

Results from French and New Zealand wine professionals were compared and analyzed.

Highlighted Results

•     New Zealand wine professionals tended to score all wines higher than French wine professionals.
•     Both New Zealand and French wine professionals perceived minerality on the palate as well as on the nose.
•     The French wine professionals tended to rely more often on nose/olfactory evaluations to produce the tasting note descriptors for the wines, while the New Zealand wine professionals relied on the palate and nose equally for their tasting notes.
•     Minerality was an automatic sorting category for the French wine professionals, while it was less clear whether the New Zealand wine professionals were doing the same thing or relying on other sorting criteria.
•     For most descriptors, New Zealand wine professionals tended to rate the intensity of these characteristics higher than French wine professionals, though qualitatively the two cultures were very similar in their description of the wines.
•     New Zealand wine professionals scored greater familiarity with French wine than the French wine professionals did with New Zealand wine.
•     Perception of minerality was positively linked in both cultures to: citrus, flinty/smoky, and chalky/calcareous.
•     Perception of minerality was also positively linked in French wine professionals only to lead/graphite.
•     Perception of minerality was also positively linked in New Zealand wine professionals only to fresh/zingy.
•     Perception of minerality was negatively linked in both cultures to passion fruit.

Conclusions

The main results of this study showed that while there are some minor cross-cultural differences between French and New Zealand wine professionals in terms of their descriptions and perceptions of flavor in Sauvignon Blanc wines, their similarities were far more prevalent. One difference between the two cultures was related to the intensity of flavor written in their descriptive analyses; however, the qualitative descriptions between the two cultures were statistically the same (i.e. the words and phrases used to describe the wines were the same).