Now this is really natural

[VS]

Ever more anxious to shed their label as oak soup makers, some of Spain's oenologists won't shy away from any extreme measures. They want to be known as rock soup makers now. A Galician winery, Virxen de Galir, announced today that it is experimenting with pieces of schist from the subsoil of its Valdeorras vineyards, placed in nets which are dumped into fermenting vats containing either godello (white) or menca (red) musts. Winemaker Arantxa Barros (whose qualifications in chemistry are unknown to me) believes that with this rocky maceration "our wines' minerality will be further increased."

Liquid rocks indeed.

 

[Arno Tronche]

Pretty soon, winemakers will be able to buy bags of rocks to put into their vats just as they do with oak chips...
Stupid.

 

[Thor]

Didn't Randall Grahm already do this?

 

[VS]

I think Randall already did just about everything, yes. But this is a radical breakthrough for European winemaking. We're so proud.

 

[MarkS]

Shhhhheeeeeeeett....think of the OTHER things they could add to their magic brew.

 

[Dan McQ]

Maybe he should run just it through this:

 

[Florida Jim]

Alchemy lives.
Best, Jim

 

[Jeff Grossman]

I suppose I've done worse things with cheesecloth.

 

[SFJoe]

Some very literal thinking going on there.

 

[Thor]

At least no one will be able to insist that "just because the wine tastes like the schist it's grown in doesn't mean there's actual schist in the wine, because there's No Mineral Uptake™..."

(It's possible I've been on wine fora too long, if this is what I think of first.)

 

[JBrennan]

Life's too short to drink schisty wine.