You may have heard of terms like “minerality” or “mineral salt content” at your latest wine tasting class or seminar. Or the words “crisp” “fresh” or “biting” when you hear a sommelier describing a wine (usually whites).

This is one of my favourite topic in wine tasting and “minerality” is one of my favourite component of wine.

In order to get my dose of salts, I recently had the pleasure of visiting the Eolian Islands in the Tirreno Sea where you can find a high concentration of minerals in the soil (base vulcanic, pomice and limestone). The small vineyards mainly of Malvasia and Catarratto – two white indigenous varieties of Sicily – are located on tiny terraces on sea cliffs. Just beautiful. 

Lipari and Vulcano Islands feature great white wines. The name of the nearby island of Salina says it all. The island of salt!