Why?
The smell of the ocean is absolutely related to salt: the physical action of the ocean on shorelines produces droplets of seawater, much of which evaporates leaving salt nano-particles in the air. Of course the ocean smell is not only salt - plenty of other impurities contribute - but there is salt in sea air.
And Iâm with the other commenters here that there is a difference between pure cedar, and what I too would call âgraphiteâ that I specifically associate with pencil shavings. Cedar is an element in the smell, but whether it is is the graphite itself (presumably tiny amounts are aerosolized through friction) or perhaps the clay binding agent used to form the graphite rods, the smell Iâm thinking of is like cedar with a metallic note.
I think âgraphiteâ is a useful descriptor just because I know exactly what people are referring to when they use it (esp. in the context of a chinon).
For myself, I usually hedge my bets by using the term âpencil shavings.â When I empty my daughterâs electric pencil sharpener, the smell of the debris is precisely what I pick up in many Loire Cab francs. Who knows if that smell comes from the graphite, the wood, or some odd combination of both.
I think the kind of linguistic absolutism lurking behind your post is silly. If we have repurposed âgraphiteâ to refer to a particular vinous scent, it hardly matters what âgraphiteâ smells or doesnât smell like in the real, non-wine related world.
Uh⌠because I dislike bullshit.
I also take salinity as sea air (as a combination of sea air and salty). As an aside, aromatics in tasting wine includes âinner mouth perfumeâ, so Iâm willing to extend âsea airâ to the entire tasting experience, not just what I smell prior to sipping.
The air at/near the ocean definitely has salt in it. Ask anyone thatâs gardened (or tried to) near a coast. Iâm assuming you can smell the salt, tho I havenât seen (or looked) for a studies to confirm this. Imo, this isnât hugely important since, when you like one salt over another, what youâre preferring generally is the various non-salt components (that have come from ex or current ocean/sea source).
This discussion does remind me of mineralityâŚminerality, imo, is just a tasting descriptor. Itâs completely fine (imo) for minerality in wine to have a completely different chemical basis in wine as it does in mineral water. If the tasting experiences have some commonality, thatâs enough for me and communicates something useful about a wine. The whole âdo minerals come from the soil into the grapes and hence into the wineâ discussion was interesting, but ultimately beside the point. Wine has earthy qualities, but no one has a bee in their bonnet about whether earth/dirt went up the roots and into the grapes and then into the wine. Or if there are cherries in the soil that make their way into the grapes and wine. Sorry, I guess that turned into rant 
.
OK. Thatâs cedar. And thatâs sometimes what people are referring to. So youâre not hedging your bets by saying pencil shavings. Youâre correctly describing a familiar smell. When critics use graphite, I donât know if they mean cedar/pencil shavings/cigar box or something else.
It matters if we want wine writers to be able to communicate in English and not some sort of secret language of twins understood only by people in the club.
If you read the criticsâ notes, the salinity is never mentioned in the aromas. Itâs always further in the review, describing a taste or sense on the finish.
Thatâs why I made the âinner mouth perfumeâ commentâŚi.e. a lot of what we think of as taste are aromatics from the wine inside our mouth.
Nonsense. We repurpose words all the time. Thatâs how language evolves. A lingua franca for wine drinkers evolves precisely from the willingness to allow words to float somewhat free from their original meanings (âmasculineâ vs âfeminineâ anyone?)
Yes, if it had been repurposed in a consistent way that we could understand, Iâd be fine with it. Wordsâ meanings shift and expand. Iâm not an absolutist. (I loved Sarah Kirschbaumâs evocative Vajra note, for instance.) Iâm just anti-blather and I oppose the school of wine criticism which equates the profundity of a tasting note with the number of adjectives that are piled on.
Itâs like the recent thread on dry extract, where someone posted to say (in effect), âWell, I know what I meant when I use dry extract to describe a wine.â No! Dry extract is a technical lab concept. I donât care if youâve got your own private meaning. Cf. L. Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, p. 1 et seq.
âMasculineâ and âfeminineâ are effective words in wine writing precisely because the way theyâre used is 100% consistent with their ordinary meanings.
Absolutely, words evolve. But metaphorical terms like that are quite different from literal descriptors like salt or cedar or black currants. Communication and language cease is I say, âblack currants for me means what you call buttered popcorn.â Black is the new white.
100% consistent? Such an odd thing to say. We understand that Chambolle is feminine but Gevrey is masculine not because we refer them back to masculinity or femininity in humans but because we compare those kinds of wines to each other. Give a new wine drinker a Chambolle and explain to them that the wine is âfeminineâ. They wouldnât have a damn clue what youâre talking about even though they are well aware of the usual meanings of that word. They have to learn how that word has been repurposed in wine writing. Same with Barolo/Barbaresco. Stick a glass of each in front of the new nebbiolo drinker and they wouldnât have a clue what youâre referring to when you call one masculine and the other feminine. Only when they are put in polar opposition to each other and have explained to them how we use those terms in wine would they have a sense of what youâre talking about.
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The one time I got a clearly saline note from a red was from a barrel sample of a first fill Taransaud T5 barrel. To this day itâs one of the most impactful barrels Iâve encountered, I almost choked at the intensity of flavor.
Yes, I see what you are saying. But communication hasnât ceased when someone uses the term graphite or lead pencil. We all know exactly what they mean. So thatâs why Iâm fine when someone uses it. (and anyway, arenât most pencil cores made of a combo of graphite and clay depending on their hardness? Is the clay also odor free?)
No, thatâs not true. Describing a wine as feminine conveys meaning even if there is no masculine point of comparison. I donât think youâll find anyone who has trouble getting the meaning, only people pretending to have trouble for ideological reasons. But even if there were truth in what youâre saying, it would be just as true of the two terms in their ordinary English sense. If you were tasked with explaining the difference between men and women to some kind of unisex alien race, youâd have a lot better luck giving them an actual man and an actual woman to do their probing on than you would with just one or the other.
Pretending that femininity describes the exact same things in wine as is does with respect to people is also ideologically freighted, as is the idea that a feminine wine would be a self evident thing to your average punter on the street.
So perhaps we should leave it there, since thereâs no point carrying on an essentialist/post-structuralist argument about language under the cover of a wine discussion.
Yep - like I said, everyone gets the meaning, but some people pretend not to for ideological reasons.
Well it does. But its likely not be the âsodium chlorideâ you actually perceive. What difference does it make though? The taste and aroma of fleur de sel can be triggered by numerous wines (and has for me). Saying it has salinity or is reminiscent of the ocean is in general terms, fairly comparable. A lot of these sensory memories all go hand in hand.