Alex Maltman

Taste the Limestone, Smell the Slate is based on 12 feature articles published over the years in the magazine The World of Fine Wine. With the feedback I received on those essays, I judged that they were providing insight into the topics they covered...

The first part of this article outlined some of the possible interactions between vines and vineyard soils. It indicated that the latter consist of a physical framework (with more or less pore space and organic matter) that is of geological origin. It also illustrated how geology figures prominently in the wine world. Whether or not it is justified, it is almost as though writers like to mention mineral and rock names…

Vineyard geology – the rocks and soils in which the grapevines are rooted – pervades the world of wine. To illustrate the point, the picture below is a collage of wine labels – all of which bear geological terms. The back-labels on wine bottles also may mention geology, as in the following extracts: “our wine originates from limestone soils”; “the chateau is on sandy limestone from the Cretaceous period”; …