Minerality is a word tasters use for wines that seem to taste of stone, chalk or salt. Wine experts do not agree on what it means, and the minerals in the soil are not the source.
Studies link the word to acidity, to less fruit and to sulfur compounds that form during winemaking. This guide covers what those studies found.
Wine experts do not agree on what minerality means
In a study of 16 Burgundy Chardonnays, experts rating minerality disagreed strongly. The authors called minerality an ill-defined sensory concept.
A 2018 review found wide differences in how wine professionals and consumers define and judge minerality.
What tasters link to minerality
In one study, wine professionals linked minerality to sour taste, citrus and wet-stone aromas, and to higher acidity. Wines with butter, vanilla and oak aromas were rated less mineral. A trained panel in the same study linked it to reduced and chalky aromas and away from juicy fruit and honey.
In Chablis, the wines rated more mineral held more methanethiol, a sulfur compound linked to shellfish aroma.
The 2018 review found that the best chemical predictors of minerality were organic compounds tied to grape ripeness, fermentation and how reduced or oxidized the wine is.
The minerals in wine
The minerals in wine are nutrients dissolved in water, such as potassium, calcium and magnesium ions. Vine roots take them up from the water in the soil. Rock minerals such as quartz and feldspar are insoluble, and of the common vineyard minerals only calcite dissolves to any degree.
Potassium is the most common mineral in wine and rarely goes above about 1 gram per liter. All inorganic content together is usually 0.15 to 0.4 percent of the wine.
Zinc in some Spanish wines measured 3 to 5 parts per billion. People can taste zinc in water at about 4 parts per million, around 1,000 times more.
Flint and struck match
Benzenemethanethiol, also called benzyl mercaptan, smells of smoke. People can detect it at about 0.3 nanograms per liter, and Chardonnays in one study held 30 to 40 nanograms per liter.
Researchers link it to flinty and struck-match aromas. Yeast strain and nitrogen additions change how much of it forms during fermentation.
Flint is silica, which is insoluble and which vine roots cannot take up. Chablis, the classic flinty wine, grows on limestone with no flint in it.
Wet stone, earth and licorice
The smell of wet stone is petrichor, oils released from stone surfaces when they warm up or get wet.
Earthy smells come from geosmin and 2-methylisoborneol, made by microbes and algae.
Licorice flavor is anethole, a compound made by living things. Priorat's llicorella is the Catalan name for its slate and has no link to licorice. Other dark-slate regions, such as the Mosel, do not report a licorice note.
What soil does change
Soil changes wine through the vine. In Bordeaux trials on gravel, clay and sand, soil and climate changed grape quality through the water they gave the vine, more than the grape variety did.
Water deficit kept berries small and raised anthocyanins. The soils guide covers nine soil types and the wines grown on each.
Common questions
- What does minerality mean in wine?
- There is no agreed definition. Tasters use it for wines that seem to taste of stone, chalk or salt, and studies link it to acidity, less fruit and some sulfur compounds.
- Does minerality come from the soil?
- Not directly. Vines take up nutrients dissolved in water, not rock, and the mineral content of wine is far below what people can taste. Soil changes the grapes through water, warmth and nutrients.
- Why do some wines smell like flint?
- A sulfur compound called benzenemethanethiol, which forms during fermentation, gives flinty and struck-match aromas.
- What is the most common mineral in wine?
- Potassium. It rarely goes above about 1 gram per liter.
- Is minerality the same as saltiness?
- No. Halite, rock salt, is the only rock mineral with a real taste, and the minerals in wine sit far below taste thresholds. In one study, wine professionals linked minerality to sour taste and higher acidity.
Sources
- Ballester et al. (2013): Exploring minerality of Burgundy Chardonnay wines, AJGWR
- Heymann, Hopfer and Bershaw (2014): An exploration of the perception of minerality in white wines, Journal of Sensory Studies
- Rodrigues et al. (2017): Sensory and chemical drivers of wine minerality aroma, Food Chemistry
- Parr, Maltman, Easton and Ballester (2018): Minerality in wine, towards the reality behind the myths, Beverages
- Maltman (2013): Minerality in wine, a geological perspective, Journal of Wine Research
- Tominaga, Guimbertau and Dubourdieu (2003): Benzenemethanethiol and smoky aroma in wine, J. Agric. Food Chem.
- Cordente et al. (2024): Modulation of the flinty aroma compound phenylmethanethiol during fermentation, OENO One
- van Leeuwen et al. (2004): Influence of climate, soil, and cultivar on terroir, AJEV
- van Leeuwen et al. (2009): Vine water status is a key factor in grape ripening, OENO One
Keep reading
The soils guide covers nine soil types and what each does in a vineyard. The wine faults guide covers reduction, the sulfur smells that turn from struck match into rotten egg.
Read the soils guide Read the wine faults guide Read the terroir guide
