“Language is a tool that allows us to interrogate wines,” a plant biologist turned wine writer said. “The journey from the perception to the word is fraught, but I like the word ‘minerality,’ because I know what it is when I taste it.”
My father used to own a small vineyard on a Hungarian volcano in the Balaton Uplands, where vines have grown since Roman times. Starting in the late nineties, he spent most weekends there, writing essays about politics and making white wine with Olaszrizling grapes. The wine tasted like lemony mineral water.
Winemaking can be a precise science, but it also relies on mysteries, accidents, and artistry. How certain elements—barrel choice, fermentation, and the ripeness of grapes when they are picked, among other things—produce particular effects is fairly well understood, but, sometimes, characteristics still emerge without clear antecedents.
The term likely benefits, too, from the assumption, fed largely by advertising, that liquid that has run through rocks is healthier, more “pure,” or otherwise improved.