You wait all your days for a debunking of the minerality’ in wine and then two come along. Both books, just published by the Academie du Vin Library, take a genuine tilt at accepted assumptions of terroir. 

The subtitle of Taste The Limestone, Smell The Slate by Alex Maltman (£35) is a mite off-putting: “A geologist wanders through the world of wine” Did my favourite wine writer,  Andrew Jefford, put me at ease with his summation? ‘“Rocks and soils haunt our thinking about wine. We see links, sniff origins, taste connections, digest differences. Is this cause and effect – or fantasy? Alex Maltman is ghostbuster-in-chief. This wide-ranging and clearly reasoned book shines a torch through cobwebs.”

Cobwebs initially entangled me as I waded through Professor Maltman’s links between terroir, geology and microbiology, but I was gripped once he put into scientific context wine writing’s insistence that minerals in the vineyard bedrock contribute to the eventual taste in the bottle.So many other factors are at play. His conclusion: ‘minerality’ is a pseudo-science.

Inescapable mind. In a recent copy of Decanter magazine Beverley Blanning MW, author of a new book on Wines of the Loire Valley, reviewed eight Sancerres from that limestone-clay terroir with a hint of flint in the east of the region. The Domaine Vacheron sample is spared, but in her short evaluations of the other seven ‘mineral’ features seven times, ‘minerality’ three.

So what does have a major impact according to Maltman? Check out the chapter, Four Elephants in the Wine Room”. The four key factors are soils, rootstock selection, choice of yeasts, and ambient factors affecting taste perceptions.

Book number two, which wields its debunking scythe much further, is Sunny Hodge’s The Cynic’s Guide To Wine (£25). As the title suggests it’s a rational antidote to romantic grape tosh, making use of the writer’s scientific background (in mechanical engineering) and running his two London wine bars – Diogenes the Dog and Aspen & Meursault.

Hodge is vituperous about the bullshit of wine speak: “‘The more we talk about wine in that way, the less we learn about wine. The more we understand why this tastes so “green-appley” because of the natural malic acid; why your Merlots and Cabernets taste so peppery, because of the pyrazines… I know it’s very technical food talk, but the more we talk about it normally, the less smoke and mirrors there are.” It’s a more approachable book than Maltman’s, ranging wider. I particularly liked the final chapter exploring taste perceptions and neurology.

I also enjoyed the sense of genuine personal engagement in the writing. Take this passage after he has pointed out that almost all rocks and minerals are essentially tasteless and odourless: “It is hard to believe that we conjured aroma associations with certain metals and rocks out of nowhere. I can myself recall the most distinct smell of lead from an unfortunate turn of events in Peckham.

“In my early twenties (he is now 35) I ended up with a couple of lead air rifle bullets lodged in the back of my head and jaw when I was the victim of a clichéd London robbery following a skate filming session… To this day the smell and taste of that alien object under my skin is unforgettable. How is possible that smell didn’t exist?”

After such polemics a recognisable vineyard journey from one of the great English wine writers. Sarah-Jane Evans’ The Wines of Northern Spain has long been an essential guide to regions that are among my favourites. Now seven years on comes The Wines of Central and Southern Spain (Academie du Vin Library, £35), which takes us from from Catalunya to Cadiz via the Levante and ends on the wilder shores of the Balearics. Trendy Sierra Gredos doesn’t make the cut, but the omission is slight when there is much else to savour in this encyclopaedic evaluation of arguably Europe’s most interesting wine country. In particular I love they way she tackles the recent transformation of traditionally hidebound sherry country in Andalucia,

Also new in the same series is The Wines of California (£35) by Elaine Chukan Brown. It is an in-depth look at what is the world’s fourth largest producer of wine, focusing not just on her base, Napa, and Sonoma but other viticulture areas emerging against the challenge of climate change, drought and the threat of wildfires. 

The book, heavyweight in every sense at nearly 500 pages, is divided into three major sections. The first presents the key ideas that help make sense of California wine as a whole, including the history of the state’s vineyards and how the topography delivers California’s climatic and soil conditions. The second tackles each major region in turn, spotlighting the most significant and interesting producers. A final section discusses the future of the industry across the state.

The Smart Traveller’s Wine Guide Series offer a pocket-sized, well-illustrated  wealth of information that can enhance a road trip or stay in any region. The latest volumes, each just £12.99, live up to that billing – Tuscany by Paul Caputo and Rioja by Fintan Kerr  (each £12.99). Both had me scanning cheap flights over.

Image credits: Chateauneuf du Pape galets (Megan Mallen); Sarah-Jane Evans and Sunny Hodge (Academie du Vin Library); Priorat (Antonio M Romero Dorado) and Sanlucar (Til F Teek).