Wine, Oak, Salt

The following is a tasting exercise that shows how salt and oak play off of one another—good & bad.

Sommeliers generally don’t like heavily oaked chardonnays.  They generally lack acidity and overpower delicate flavors.  They also make foodstuffs taste saltier then they actually are.  There is nothing more cringing then a restaurant patron enjoying Japanese bluefin toro delicately seasoning with Himalayan sea salt and drinking a California chardonnay that has 100% new French oak and 100% malo…and then comments that the food was too salty…  If oaky, buttery chardonnays are your preferred white, stick with richer dishes that have heavy cream sauces.

The Popcorn
Pop a big bowl of popcorn.  Separate it into three bowls. Leave one bowl unsalted.  The second bowl should be seasoned with moderate salt and butter.  The third bowl, aggressively seasoned with salt and butter to the point where it is offensive to your palate—it should taste like a cow’s salt lick.

The Chardonnay
Procure three different chardonnays: one with no oak (all stainless), one with neutral oak, and one with 100% new oak.   Pour each respective chardonnay in a tasting glass and line them up left to right.  The left has no oak, middle neutral oak, and right 100% new oak.

The Tasting
Taste the unoaked chardonnay, with each respective seasoned popcorn, beginning with no salt, and progressing to the saltiest.  See how the wine tastes with each different popcorn.  Repeat the process for the next two chardonnays.  By the time you get to the last pairing of big oak and big salt, you may never want to eat salt again!

This is a great exercise to understand salt, oak, and wine.  It will help you distinguish your preference and threshold for salt.