(Wine-Searcher) - New research suggests that minerality in wine is not a figment of the imagination.

Wine tasting notes are peppered with the ambiguous term minerality, but does it exist? And, if it does exist, what does it mean and where does it come from? Can you smell it, or is it purely a taste sensation?

In a bid to close the black hole of knowledge relating to minerality, sensory scientists in New Zealand and France have collaborated on a project to understand better what the concept of minerality means in Sauvignon Blanc wines, and "to investigate cultural differences in the perception of minerality" between the two wine-producing countries.

The results suggest that the concept is very real: despite being 12,000 miles apart, the participants in the French and Kiwi panels shared a similar notion of minerality. Lead author Dr Wendy Parr told Wine Searcher: "Overall, it was remarkable – we were quite amazed by the similarities the data showed between participants." The study noted that this was all the more remarkable due to the "differences in wine cultures of France and New Zealand in attitudes towards wine and in current wine-production styles of Sauvignon Blanc wine".

Inevitably there were differences between individuals' perception of minerality, which supported the findings of a 2013 study of minerality in Burgundy Chardonnay. Parr explained: "Mineral is a character that's so nebulous, you're going to get differences between people." Nevertheless, the notion of minerality appears to be a shared concept across the seas.

The researcher’s main finding was that a lack of perceived flavor was associated with the perception of minerality. But what exactly does that mean? Parr explained: "If there's nothing much else in the wine, people resort to calling it mineral by a process of elimination. If you can't get much flavor out of a wine, you might be more likely to produce the descriptor mineral." Conversely, the more intense the fruit, the less mineral wines were judged.

There have been suggestions that minerality is solely a taste sensation, but the findings indicate that you can smell minerality as well as taste it. The panelists evaluated the wines by smell alone, by taste alone (wearing a nose clip), and by smelling and tasting and, in all three cases, the wine professionals perceived a mineral character.

While there is anecdotal evidence that reductive aromas and high acidity can contribute to the perception of minerality, the study failed to find any evidence to back this up. On sulfides, Parr noted that a number of New Zealand wine professionals have suggested that they have picked up reductive notes in wines sealed with screwcaps that they believe other people are judging as mineral. "But we haven't found any clear link between reduction and perceived minerality at all."

When it comes to acidity and pH, there have been studies that found a set of participants associated acidity with minerality but again the link has not been clear. Parr and her team are now extending their work to investigate if there are any relationships between the pH and the TA (titratable acidity) of a wine and the perception of minerality. There is also ongoing research on the presence of compounds such as calcium and their relationship to minerality.