Salt: salty wines or wines with hints of saltiness…
Have you ever tasted a wine with a slight touch of saltiness, iodine, or sea breeze aromas? If not, well, you surely will at some point.
If yes, then you may have been surprised by this rather unusual marine scent and may have wondered where it could come from. Most of us associate this salty touch with the fact that the wine may have been produced in close proximity to an ocean or a sea, like a "Muscadet de Sevre et Maine" (Loire Valley, France) or a "Rias Baixas" (Galicia, Spain), but is that really always the case?
Some of these wines, which present some saltiness or hints of sea breeze on the nose, may actually come from an area near salty waters. Yet, strangely enough, for some of them, the proximity of a salty body of water has nothing to do with it.
For example, I just tasted a wine from Austria (a country with no coasts, only mountains and lakes), which, in my opinion, presented this unusual particularity on the nose and the palate. I could literally taste a touch of saltiness.
At first, I thought I was wrong, so I asked two of my colleagues to taste it without letting them know what particularity I found in this wine. Strangely enough, they tasted it too, especially for one who immediately voiced it in his first comment: "There is some kind of saltiness in this wine!"
And here I was, perplexed and intrigued, tasting an Austrian wine with salty notes on both the nose and palate and I could not answer any of the questions suddenly popping into my mind. Austria isn't that close to the Gulf of Trieste in the Adriatic Sea, and mountain chains separate it from the closest seawater.
Therefore, I decided to research it on the net and in books, and eventually, I also asked various producers and winemakers a few questions.
All the answers and conversations indicated and pointed to the importance of sodium chloride or "Salt" naturally contained in the ground, which could somewhat impart the taste of some wines.
Salt???
Everybody is acquainted with “Salt”. One way or another, it is impossible to avoid it, as it is everywhere. Salt is one of the most prominent elements you can find on Earth. It is everywhere, and most beings (humans, animals, and plants alike) consume a good dose of it every day (knowingly or unknowingly).
One can naturally find it in his or her drinks (water, soda, beer, cocktails, and many other beverages, including wine) and all sorts of food, from meat and fish to vegetables and fruit and so much more.
Our body also contains salt (iodine). You can taste it when you sweat or when you cry. It is in our blood and one of the most critical "oligo-éléments" (or trace elements) essential to life.
Salt or iodine is part of what is called "the essential trace elements," a class of pure mineral nutrients necessary for the life of an organism, even if in tiny quantities. The essential trace elements of the human body include zinc (Zn), copper (Cu), selenium (Se), chromium (Cr), cobalt (Co), iodine (I), manganese (Mn), and molybdenum (Mo).
Although essential to life, trace elements can also be toxic to the body when present at too high levels. The effect of a trace element depends on the dose intake. When the element is said to be essential, the absence of it, as an excessive intake, can be lethal.
The fact that Salt is a mineral nutrient necessary for the life of our organism is often left out of the picture and rarely discussed, even by doctors. This is undoubtedly because, in our everyday lives, we already consume "tones of salt" mainly used for food seasoning and curing meat (and fish) as a preservative. Salt, in its many forms and shapes, is everywhere.
In fact, salt is undoubtedly one of the oldest, most ubiquitous food seasonings, and somehow, humans couldn't have barely lived so long without it. Salting has been a quintessential method of seasoning and food preservation that has been part of human culture and tradition for at least the last 6,000 years.
In fact, human beings have used canning and artificial refrigeration (also involving the indispensable omnipresence of salt) to preserve food for approximately the last two thousand years. In the millennia before then, while salt was considered a luxury item, primarily accessible by the rich and those on the coasts, salt already provided the best-known food preservative, especially for meat and fish. It has also been widely used in cosmetics for centuries.
Salt for human consumption is produced in different forms: unrefined salt (such as sea salt), refined salt (table salt), and iodized salt (multiple purposes). Salt is a crystalline solid, white, pale pink, or light gray in color, generally obtained from seawater or rock deposits on the ground, that can be found pretty much everywhere around the world. Edible rock salts may be slightly grayish or pinkish in color because of their high mineral content. Natural and non-iodized, organic sea salt, usually light grey or whitish, is preferred by world-class chefs, restaurants, cooks, and even you and me at home.
My best (personal) experience with salt has always been with beef steaks cooked on the grill over embers of "Sarments" (dried vine shoots collected during winter), seasoned with a touch of butter, finely diced shallots, fresh ground pepper, and more importantly, "Mountain salt" from Argentina. It is delightful, and the Argentinian salt seems to taste sweet rather than salty. You ought to try it, or you’ll be missing something.
Salt is one of the earth's most common minerals, composed primarily of sodium chloride, which is essential for human and animal life. But once again, it is important to remind you that it can also be toxic if used in excess, destructive to many land plants, and corrosive to many objects.
Scientifically speaking, chloride and sodium ions, the two significant components of salt, are necessary for the survival of all known living creatures. Among other things, Salt regulates the body's water content (fluid balance).
Yet, once again, over-consumption of salt increases the risk of health problems, including high blood pressure and accentuation of bone/cartilage problems.
Carefully read the Nutrient facts on the back label of any food packaging to evaluate the Sodium content, and always choose the product with the lowest amount. Also, usually, if the product is organic or biodynamic, the sodium level should be lower, too. Preserve your body and health, and pay attention to these little details.
Let’s leave the medical side of things and continue this post with the taste of Salt, or should I say its “palette gustative” flavors and origin.
Gustatory palette and presence in the ground
To start with, and most importantly for today’s post, I need to acknowledge that "Salty" is one of the 5 basic tastes (see my illustration above), along with “Sweet/Sugar” (sweet flavors on the front tip of the tongue), “Sour” (sour flavors on the side of the tongue), “Bitter” (bitter flavors on the back of the tongue), and "Umami" (savory flavors in the middle of the tongue). Saltiness is detected by two areas located on either side of the tongue’s tip (between sweet and sour).
In short, the way your taste buds are distributed on the surface of your tongue is the reason why, when you taste wine (or food or anything else), you usually first detect the Sweet taste (fruitiness, ripeness, or residual sugar), then Salt (although rarely occurring in most wines, it is far from being uncommon, more especially in wines from certain regions for obvious reasons, where it is often due to salt/iodine in the air and ground, generally expressed as a touch of salinity, yet some people may mistake it occasionally for minerality), Sour (if too much acidity or unripe fruit), and finally Bitter (especially when/if the wine is too tannic, green or presents unripe tannins, or if the alcohol is too present and non-integrated).
However, I can already see your bewildered faces… wondering what “Salt” has to do with wine.
Well, vines and wines are grown on land and no addition of salt is involved in the vinification process? Except for those aged underwater (in the sea), of course (*).
Yet, as we said earlier: “Salt is a crystalline solid, white, pale pink or light gray in color, normally obtained from seawater or rock deposits, that can be found pretty much everywhere on earth.” Still don’t get my point?
Well, it is quite simple. Salt is abundant in seawater; that is a given! However, it is also significantly present in the ground as a natural mineral, most notably as a natural deposit from the seawater that once used to cover a large portion of the current land (all around the globe) millions of years ago.
As sea levels began to recede, sea salt gradually deposited on the ground, accumulating in layers and patches underground over thousands of years. It descended from the tops of mountains and hills, flowing down slopes and valleys shaped by tectonic movements, erosion from lowering sea levels, rainfall, and other climatic factors, as well as the melting of ice and glaciers during the last Ice Ages.
As a result, sodium chloride (commonly known as salt) has slowly accumulated over millennia in various types of terrains that were once under oceans and seawater. This explains why it can be found in different kinds of soils and at various elevations and depths (even at high altitudes), where it forms abundant layers and patches both above and below ground.
For roughly the past 6,000 years, humans have found and learned how to extract and use these remnants of salt deposits from the ancient oceans and seas, which can now be found pretty much everywhere, from the hot, sandy, flat desert regions to the high-altitude mountain chains around the world.
The ground layers of the ancient sea beds and ocean levels found in the mountains and underground still offer archeological mines of seawater fossilized treasures: shells, stones, fossils, and more—and obviously salt, too.
Multiple examples of salty areas and bodies of water with high salinity, from oceans, seas, and even lakes to plains, deserts, and mountains, can be found in many countries: Great Salt Lake (Utah, UT), Salton Sea (California, CA), The Dead Sea (between Israel and Jordan), etc… just to name a few.
To resume, we now know that Sodium Chloride (or Salt) is a natural mineral element found not only in the ocean and sea waters but also in the mountains and pretty much everywhere else in the ground, soil, sand, dirt, rocks, etc. It can also be found in various places with different types of climates, temperatures, and altitudes, and ultimately, it is also present in the air near a mass of salty waters or lands.
Salt seems naturally found in higher quantities in regions with hot weather and, therefore, moderate to poor rainfall. In areas where water evaporation from the ground is greater due to higher temperatures (or other specific climatic conditions) and minimal rain. These conditions lead to the inability to naturally filter, dilute, or wash out salt from the upper and low underground levels. As a result, layers formed above and below ground may affect or impart the taste of the wine produced from vines planted in these soils due to the saline components in the soil that are absorbed by the vines and surrounding plants.
Therefore, like most minerals and other components contained in the vineyard's soil and subsoil, salt may affect the wine and its intrinsic components and can even somewhat impart its taste in some cases.
Salt imparts the taste of wine in the same way it can also impart the taste of meat from cows, cheeps, and other animals that pasture near salty water (oceans, seas, some lakes, etc.) and areas where the ground possesses high salinity. Just as animals consume salt from the grass, plants, and fruits they eat, vines absorb salt through their roots, extending deep underground to obtain nutrients.
That said, it is essential to understand that vines' roots reach deep underground in search of water in the soil (via humidity/nutrient patches), not in the rocks. Consequently, the minerals they absorb along the way are nutrient minerals (nitrogen, potassium, iron, salt, etc.) derived from patches and layers of humus, decomposed organic matter, and certain forms of clay, such as montmorillonite. These nutrient minerals differ from the geological minerals that compose rocks and soils.
Consequently, despite a common belief in the wine industry in general, the geological minerals of the rocks present in the soils on which the vines grow don't affect the taste of the wine; the nutrient minerals do.
This means that vines' roots may go through cracked solid rocks (like schist or slate) and porous sedimentary rocks (like limestone), but these rocks do not directly affect the taste of the wine. Conversely, the nutrient minerals absorbed by the vines (and ultimately present in wine, even in minuscule concentration and virtually flavorless and odorless, especially having gone through the fermentation process) have been scientifically proven pivotal in determining wine character and flavor, including that little hint of sea breeze in the aromas and iodine saltiness in some wines.
After several conversations with people working in the industry, it seems that some producers and winemakers are aware of the presence of salt or traces of saltiness in their wine but are not necessarily concerned about it, either because their wines do not show many traces of it or simply because they do not mind the saltiness or savoriness that may be found in their wines.
Some have realized its presence in their wines but are not fully aware of the reason why or are not acquainted with it, maybe because they have not made any soil composition study or research yet (not every property has the means nor the will to hire geologists and topographers to better know the various soils and soils components of their property). They may not consider it as a problem after all, even if they don't fully understand where it may be from.
However, some producers and winemakers who did some research or even had the soils of their vineyards studied, those with the presence of Sodium Chloride (salt), have already acknowledged the fact that if found in excess in the soil, it could create a warm or even salty sensation on the palate when tasting a wine.
Further studies on the effects of sodium chloride in wine may be conducted, particularly in light of global warming and rising temperatures. This is important because salt concentration and deposits might increase in regions where rainfall decreases, leading to reduced water presence in the soil.
When researching this subject to write this post, I realized that large-scale uprooting of plants in general, in addition to deforestation, without necessarily having a plowing and replanting programs, could lead to more desert and arid areas, with poor soils, barely any plants or animals, and a higher density of sodium chloride in the soil and subsoil (yet, I will stop here, as this is yet another fascinating and vast subject that should deserve an entire post to itself, to be continued... one day... you never know).
En Resumé
Considering all the factors and reasons mentioned above, we can now assess that by tasting certain wines produced near the sea or ocean, or from vines planted in soils rich in sodium chloride (salt), some people may discover- to their surprise or not, as it might be obvious due to the presence of salt in the air and on the ground- hints of sea breeze or iodine aromas in the wine. This is similarly true for the meat of animals grazing near the ocean or sea, such as sheep and cows.
However, these specific characteristics mostly manifest on the nose and, less frequently, on the palate (except for certain types of meats and vegetables). That said, it is sometimes possible to detect saltiness on the palate when tasting wine. Although many believe this is caused by the presence of salt in the air, particularly in wines produced from coastal vineyards (due to seawater in the atmosphere or airborne salt from evaporation), that subtle hint of saltiness primarily comes from the soil and sub-soil nutrient minerals, rather than from the nearby salty water.
This explains why the following Austrian wine, from a mountainous region far from the sea, presents slight hints of saltiness.
It's an interesting topic, isn't it? I could still write a few more technical things about it, but I don't want to bore you with more details than I already did above.
After reading this post, are you still skeptical about saltiness in wine? Well, you should experience these types of wine and discover for yourself.
I suggest you try some coastal wines, where the hints or traces of saltiness might be the most obvious. For example, some wines from the North and Northwest parts of Spain, like Txakoli (Basque Country) Rías Baixas (Galicia), have this characteristic. Some mountain wines from Austria and the northern part of Italy also have this characteristic. Some wines from the Loire Valley, like the Muscadet and some Sancerre and Pouilly-Fume, may also present salty nuances. So many.
Last week again, I tasted three to four completely different white wines that had distinct and characteristic sea breeze, briny, almost slightly salty aromas, and flavors. They were fresh and delicious, bright and springy-summery, with that “je-ne-sais-quoi” of saltiness that makes them intriguing, savory, and delightfully pleasant.
The wine below is one of these slightly "salty" wines I tasted last week, probably the most obvious of them, and I loved it.
Weingut Neumeister Süd-Oststeiermark Straden Austria
Weingut Neumeister is a small, innovative winery/restaurant/relaxation center located in Straden, a small municipality in the district of Radkersburg in Styria, Austria. This province represents the southeastern part of Austria, called Süd-Oststeiermark, bordering Slovenia and Hungary to the north and west.
Albert and Anna Neumeister, with Christoph Neumeister as the winemaker and Mathias as the Sommelier in charge of the restaurant, own this family-run winery. They possess about 24 hectares (60 acres) plus 16 hectares (40 acres) of vineyards under contract, for an annual production of roughly 210,000 bottles.
They produce their wines mainly from four single vineyards: Saziani, Moafeiti, Klausen, and Steinthal. These vineyards are quite distinct by their soil characteristics, conferring great earthiness, texture, and complexity to their wines. The vineyards are planted with 25% Sauvignon Blanc, 18% Welschriesling, 10% Morillon (Chardonnay), 10% Weissburgunder (Pinot Blanc), 7% Muskateller, 7% Grauburgunder (Pinot Gris), 5% Traminer, 12% Zweigelt, and 6% Pinot Noir.
The family Neumeister is in debt to this unique environment. The delicate relationship between the landscape and nature goes without saying. Each variety is handled individually (in the vineyards, during the harvest, and during the vinification at the cellar).
They adopt a close-to-nature cultivation and organic vineyard management, refraining from herbicides and chemical fertilizers. Natural pesticide methods are employed, and the risk of fungi is minimized through vigorous foliage work. Every vine is maintained and trained with careful handwork.
They produce what is locally called “Steirische Klassik,” meaning typical “Styrian” wines fermented in stainless steel tanks. These wines are bright, clean, and focus on terroir: Sauvignon Blanc from Moarfeitl and Klausen, Morillon from Moarfeitl, Grauburgunder from Saziani, Roter Traminer from Steintal, and Weissburgunder from Klausen.
That day, the wine I liked the most was their "Morillon," the local and traditional name given to Chardonnay in Austrian Styria. It was delightful.
2006 Weingut Neumeister Morillon Moarfeitl Süd-Oststeiermark Straden Austria
Suggested retail price is about $18-21
Although still in a mountainous region, Straden is located in one of the flattest parts of Austria, and far from the Mediterranean Sea, about 270 kilometers from Trieste in Italy (one of the closest beach towns).
Therefore, explaining the slight saltiness in this wine may be challenging. Yet, as described above, the explanation comes from the ground, where patches of saltiness can be found.
Have you never heard of “Morillon”? Well, it is not a commonly used name, that's why. Yet, it is just another name for Chardonnay in the Austrian region of Styria.
This wine was produced from hand-harvested vines planted on gently rolling hills culminating at about 300 meters above sea level.
The soil of the 3 ha (7,5 acres) “Moarfeitl” vineyard is mainly composed of lime, sandy loam with gravel of schist, quartz, and gneiss, which somewhat explains the freshness, minerality, and slight salty touch of this wine (due to the soil high content of sand and minerals).
Behind its pale straw yellow color with green reflects, this wine offers a fresh nose with floral and mineral notes and fresh almond hints. The palate is fairly rich, fresh and balanced, elegant and mineral with zesty citrus and stone fruits, hints of blossoms, and nuts. The finish is lingering with white fruit and minerals. The saltiness mainly appears in the attack and mid-palate and integrates fairly quickly.
At first, I thought I had mistaken that touch of saltiness for something else, but two of my colleagues concurred, and we arrived at the same conclusion regarding this wine: "Great white wine with a slight perceptible saltiness!"
It is definitely a food wine to pair with fish and shellfish, but also white meat, poultry, and cheese.
Try it for yourself and let me know. As always, I'm open to any comments and suggestions.
Enjoy!
LeDomduVin a.k.a. Dominique Noel
To be continued ....with more Salty wines... like Amayna Sauvignon Blanc and Chardonnay from Chile; and Caruso Inzolia Terre di Giumara Sicilia; and more...
Step into the Green! Drink more Biodynamic and Organic wines (and food) from sustainable culture and respect the environment! Support the right causes for the Planet and all the people suffering all around the globe!
Cheers! Santé!
Dom
- Original article written April 25th, 2010
- Illustration as a header added, text edited and corrected April 19th, 2022
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