Don’t inform anybody, however each time individuals begin speaking about rocks, I panic. I’ve bought the fundamentals down – clay, gravel, limestone and the like – however for those who had been to quiz me on the nuances between schist and shale, tufo and tufa… effectively, that’s the place you lose me.
I’ve had Alex Maltman’s first e-book, Vineyards, Rocks, & Soils (Oxford College Press, 2018), for years, and though I often open it in an earnest try to get previous my aforementioned anxiousness, I discover Netflix, dusting or, effectively, virtually anything to be way more tempting than dealing with my worry.
However Maltman appears decided to not let me dwell on in geologically ignorant bliss, and a set of his writing (a lot of which beforehand featured in The World of Wonderful Wine) has been parcelled up neatly into a brand new e-book by Académie du Vin Library. Style the Limestone, Odor the Slate (April 2025, £35) is a response to the rise of ‘minerality’ – the pseudoscience thrown round within the wine world tying geology to what results in our glass. This comparatively latest phenomenon clearly irks Maltman, and at occasions his ire on the wine world’s naivete feels fierce – maybe a bit ranty. For – and warning, readers, a plot spoiler cometh – it’s principally nonsense. You aren’t tasting Kimmeridgian chalk in your Chablis, flint in that superb Pouilly-Fumé, or clay (even that particular blue clay) in your Pomerol. Sure, bedrock and soil affect viticulture in varied methods, but it surely’s far much less nuanced than you may suppose.
‘So,’ you may ask, ‘why would I need to learn a e-book about geology and wine?’ Nicely, Maltman’s work is thought-provoking, to say the least, and surprisingly readable – even for me. Maltman runs by way of most of the most well-known soils and rocks you’ll discover referenced on the planet of wine – and what they actually imply, contradicting a lot of what you might need hitherto believed. I lastly have some understanding of why I’m so confused by the tufa/tufo/tuff/and so on phrases, and a chapter that traces the invention of photosynthesis and crops’ dependence on vitamins is genuinely enjoyable.
The persistent suggestion that almost all wine drinkers imagine that minerals are transferred immediately from the rocks to the wine feels foolish to me – the best way through which we describe wine is metaphorical. Maltman is probably overly dismissive of wine fans’ nerdery, suggesting few are conscious that yeasts, rootstocks (clones are notably absent), temper, music and way more have an effect on flavour and our notion of it; I might argue that the geekiest, those that are most enthused about soils, are effectively conscious – and the chapter is probably an excessively cursory nod to the complexities of the subject.
However don’t let that cease you from digging in. It’s such an excellent learn it would even get me to lastly end his first e-book.
In love with the Loire
The Loire is a area I don’t know practically sufficient about, so I used to be delighted when Beverley Blanning MW’s Wines of the Loire Valley (October 2024, £35), one other new addition to the Basic Wine Library, landed on my desk. Blanning’s writing is zippy and easy, breaking down the extremely diverse area into pleasingly consumable nuggets. A benchmark information to its varied appellations, in addition to high producers inside every, it’s a vital purchase for any fanatic, budding or dedicated.
