Blood, Sweat, and Chardonnay

There is, perhaps, nothing on this earth so elemental as salt. It’s the flavor of the ocean, and of blood. Also sweat, tears, and — let’s be frank here — semen, that stuff which contains half the origin of human life.

Salt has been used as currency. It is a mainstay of both religious ceremonies and superstitions. It can purify, preserve, and cure. Human blood is, in fact, .9% sodium chloride: the same concentration as the salt water that is used to cleanse wounds. It maintains the electrolyte balance in our cells and without it, we would die. Also, my mother insists a few grains are necessary to enhance every food, including her double-chocolate cake with angel-white vanilla frosting.

Still, despite salt’s place in the canon of basic tastes, I am always surprised when I find it present in my wine.

This happened a couple month’s ago, with a Grüner Veltliner called E & M Berger Kremstal 2006, which I described as having "the salty taste of sweat, like when you kiss a baby on the neck."

However, that was a very subtle oceanic drinking experience; my most recent one was not.

Domaine Vessigaud Cru de Bourgogne Pouilly-Fuissé 2005 is a
powerfully briny wine, a French Chardonnay so robust, it will
complement everything from strong cheese to fowl to a firm fish such as
tuna or salmon. Even caviar. This wine is bursting with citrus, honey, and
floral elements, but the central flavor is salt — like a wave of
sun-filled, lemon-sweetened water from the Dead Sea.

It’s tempting to compare this wine to sweet and salty foods: chocolate-covered almonds, caramel corn,crackling duck with cherry sauce. But that would be cheap. . . .and inaccurate. The tastes in the Vessigaud don’t contrast so much as scaffold, following roughly the primary areas of the tongue: sweet, sour, bitter, and salt. But in this case, the first three are only touched with honey, lemon, and a butterscotchy hint that’s ever so slightly dark. Then it is the final saline taste that remains.

The truth is, I didn’t like the Vessigaud much at first. I was drinking it without food (probably a mistake), and found it offputting and difficult to parse. But after a couple ounces, I warmed to it — literally. The salty flavor softened and my palate accommodated. By the time I was halfway through the glass, it tasted far more natural. Nutritive in a biblical sort of way.

As I poured the second, however, something else occurred to me. Back in the early 90’s, there was a late show on CBS called Forever Knight, about a reformed vampire living in an eerie and perpetually midnight blue section of Toronto and working as a cop. He was on the night shift, of course. Nick Knight was his name, and in order to soothe his 800-year-old urges, he drank cow’s blood (which he got from a slaughterhouse) from wine bottles that he kept stacked up in his fridge.

As I sipped the Vessigaud Pouilly-Fuissé, I became more and more comfortable with the fact that even despite its clear color, it had a distinctly bloodlike taste. Nick Knight, I decided, would have loved this.