Ep 278 - Oceanic Wine Explained: Can You Taste the Sea? with Chris Howard

Can You Taste the Sea? In this episode of Eat Sleep Wine Repeat, Janina dives into the fascinating and potentially controversial idea of Oceanic Wine with wine writer, judge and educator Chris Howard . Chris has proposed that oceanic wine should be considered a category in its own right, exploring what happens when the sea becomes one of the dominant forces shaping a vineyard and the wine in your glass. But what actually makes a wine oceanic rather than simply coastal? Chris explains why proximity alone isn't enough, and how wind, fog, salt, temperature, exposure and geography can all influence vineyards in very different ways. From California's Sonoma Coast and coastal Chile to Tasmania, Margaret River, South Africa and New Zealand, this episode explores Wine Regions where the ocean may play a defining role. The conversation also asks one of the most intriguing questions in Wine Education: when tasters describe salinity, iodine, oyster shell or sea spray, are we genuinely tasting the ocean? Chris introduces ideas including merroir and airroir, considers how wind and fog affect Wine Grapes, and explains why science, imagination and our emotional response to place can all become part of the way we experience wine. For anyone looking to learn about wine from a completely different perspective, this Wine Podcast combines viticulture, geography, philosophy and tasting with plenty of inspiration for future Wine Travel. And towards the end, Chris recommends producers where he believes the ocean can genuinely be expressed in the glass before exploring one of wine's strangest experiments: ageing bottles beneath the sea. Shownotes 03:27 – How Chris Howard found his way into wine — growing up among the vineyards of Sonoma County, surfing the California coast and eventually discovering that wine had been part of his life all along. 06:28 – Why does wine need an “oceanic” category? — Chris explains how years of writing about coastal wine regions led him to propose Oceanic Wine as an umbrella concept connecting maritime, coastal and island wines. 10:37 – Oceanic wine vs coastal wine — why simply being close to the sea isn't enough, and how Chris distinguishes geographical proximity from vineyards where the ocean becomes a dominant environmental force. 14:31 – The world's most extreme oceanic wine regions — from West Sonoma Coast and coastal Chile to Tasmania, Margaret River, Madeira, the Azores and South Africa's windswept southern tip. 18:54 – Are we romanticising the sea? — Chris explores the balance between scientific evidence and the emotional, aesthetic and poetic experience of drinking wine shaped by the ocean. 21:27 – Can you actually taste the sea in wine? — salinity, iodine, oyster shell and sea spray come under the microscope as Chris considers where these flavours might come from and why they aren't exclusive to coastal vineyards. 23.40 - Fiefs Vendéens - located in western France, right on the Atlantic coast just south of the city of Nantes and the Muscadet wine region. 25:02 – Colares: vines growing beside the Atlantic — old vineyards planted in sand dunes, indigenous grape varieties and intensely saline wines offer one of Chris's clearest examples of an oceanic wine landscape. 29:28 – How far inland can an oceanic vineyard be? — why distance from the coastline alone cannot define oceanic influence and how geography can carry wind and fog surprisingly far inland. 34:11 – Introducing airroir — moving beyond terroir and merroir to consider the influence of wind, fog, light and the atmosphere surrounding a vineyard. 36:22 – What wind and fog actually do to vines — how cooling fog can preserve acidity and slow ripening while ocean winds reduce disease pressure, carry salt and place physical stress on the vine.