Revelation in the air, and smells of wines

The case for "air-roir "

Corscian vineyard, surrounded by maquis, spilling into the Mediterranean Sea.

As of this writing I have embarked on still another phase of my 47-year career as a wine professional. I am now excited about expanding into photography. I will keep you posted on the developments as I work on a new website showcasing my work in this area over the past 15 years.

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The following piece is culled from my “Wandering Sommelier” columns previously published in Tasting Panel Magazine. I hope you enjoy the dreamy iterations of places (all but the Corsican image an original by yours truly), adding up to good food for thought. My best as always, RC

During one wine country tour that I organized a few years ago for sommeliers coming in from across the country, Timothy O’Neal of Kansas City was suddenly hit by what he called “a personal revelation.”

It happened during a visit to the Corralitos/Pleasant Valley area of Santa Cruz Mountains—a decidedly cold climate sub-region (where Chardonnay and Pinot noir are often picked in November) located a scant three, four miles from Monterey Bay, with the added stress of vines being grown on hillsides amounting pretty much to giant, porous sand dunes.

Says Mr. O’Neal, “I tasted a 2010 Lester Family Pinot Noir made by Big Basin winery, and it was briny! You could literally smell the salty oceanic expression—it was one of the briniest wines I’d ever tasted, certainly different from the Big Basin Pinots grown further away from the coast, at higher elevations.

Santa Cruz Mountains’ Lester Vineyard, located in the Corralitos/Pleasant Valley area a few scant miles from the Pacific Ocean.

“But in a way, it no longer comes as a shock that wines smell like where they come from. This is something I’ve confirmed many times since, when tasting California Pinot Noirs back home in the restaurant. I think I can now identify wines grown close to the ocean, or far away from the ocean, nearly all the time.”

For O’Neal, awareness of this particular sensory aspect of wine was slow to come. “For example, when I first started trying to assess wines critically earlier in my career, I had a difficult time distinguishing oak, since oak is so strongly associated with varietals such as Chardonnay and Cabernet you begin to think that is the smell of Chardonnay and Cabernet. Over time, and by tasting many wines, my skill with it has developed over the years. Now, a new focus on the brine in the wine, like the presence of oak, has become a legitimate component of wine analysis—at least for me.”

The idea of the “air” strongly influencing aromas and flavors of wines is not exactly new. It’s just that the common assumption has always been that “earthy” qualities are byproducts of either soil or grape characteristics. Yet everyone has also known, for instance, that wines made from vineyards lined with eucalyptus trees invariably end up with minty, eucalyptus-like aromas and flavors; even bordering on cat pee, which is the smell of eucalyptus leaves.

Vermentino, a grape (like Pinot noir and Zinfandel) which is often very transparent; that is, expressive of its terroir to the point of picking up scents in the air.

The French have always known this. It is no surprise that Vermentino based white wines grown along the shores of Corsica taste of sea brine and greenery, mixed in with the lemon and kitchen herb qualities of the grape. Sea brine and maquis (i.e., evergreen shrubs) are exactly how the air in Corsica smells. The Corsicans know this because they live there. For them, maquis is not just a natural phenomenon, it is an indelible part of their culture. Of course, Corsican wines retain the scent of maquis!

In Provence, it’s all about garrigue: The wild scrub surrounding vineyards, imparting resiny aromas and flavors resembling lavender, thyme, rosemary, sage and other familiar herbs—inundating white wines, reds and rosés, no matter what grapes these wines are made from. The idea that pungent qualities are derived from air is a priori in this part of the world. That is to say, it just is.

Barry Gnekow, a widely acclaimed consulting winemaker in California (wineries such as J. Lohr, Michael David and Klinker Brick have attributed their success to Gnekow’s genius), has coined the term “air-roir” for qualities derived from the air associated with specific terroirs. Over the years Gnekow has collected proof of this concept in the form of essences preserved in waters dispensed from Flash Détente (i.e., thermovinification) machines. Without knowing where a wine is grown, you can deduce their locations just from the scents of flash waters removed from their musts.

West Sonoma Coast vineyard producing wines scented with the woodsiness mixed with brininess reflecting the surroundings forest and nearby Pacific Ocean.

Is “air-roir” a manifestation of terroir? How can you say it is not? Air-derived smells, in fact, become even stronger in wines that are more transparently vinified, employing minimal oak, indigenous rather than cultured yeast fermentations, and finished with little or no filtration.

How else do you explain Pinot Noirs from West Sonoma Coast or Santa Cruz Mountains that are often woodsy or forest floor-ish? Lodi Zinfandels that are composty or animal-like? Barolos from Piedmont with tar or fusel notes? When vineyards are surrounded by woodlands, cow pastures, or autostrada busily spewing their pungent road smells, invariably these circumstances end up in wines—which, often enough, are many of our finest, or most interesting, wines!

Air-roir, indeed.

Remote, high elevation Santa Cruz Mountains vineyard surrounded by woodland imparting its own stamp of aromatic qualities into its wines.