What do we mean when we say dusty?

I attempt to trace dust and as usual, it gets existential.

You’re at a wine bar looking over the by-the-glass list. The menu lists a few tasting notes listed under each wine to give you a feel for what you might taste. And you come across a word…dusty. So casually thrown in there, like it’s no more strange to say lemon than it is to say dust.

And it isn’t. That’s the beauty of the wine “bouquet”—you’ll find yourself looking for the smell of cow manure or pencil lead. At some point down the rabbit hole, you’ll realize you don’t even recognize yourself, and if you’re lucky enough to be sitting at a wine bar that has lined their back bar with mirrors, as I was one day, you can look up and say “phew. There I am. Dusty?”

Breaking down dust

The word dust or dusty implies an earthly process, and the word comes from Middle English dust or doust. The origins of the word are used to describe dry material, most commonly dried earth, that has been broken down so fine that coarse, ground, or gravel simply won’t do. Dust is light, and easily picked up by wind or kicked into the air.

I asked other wine professionals to define dusty, as they understand it and I’ve gathered a few for us to take a look at.

Isabella @here.to.wine: I think I use this most on Sangiovese. Dusty road vibes…dusty earth/dry earth

Sedale @untoldwinestories: I would probably use it for something that has chalky minerality but lighter or fainter

Celine @_modernhobbyist_: The tannins are super fine and overt and occasionally they are combined with savory aromas of grandma’s basement

Lucy @modern_wine: Shroomy! (which includes the residue at the bottom of a bag of magic mushies)

Neil @vincetera: I’m thinking of tannins that are just shy of chalky

We see some repeated ideas here: chalk, minerality, umami flavors, and tannins. If we think of dust in terms of chalk and other rocks, rather than the dust we sweep off our dresser once a month, we can begin to understand dusty not so much as a flavor descriptor, but a textural element.

Dusty: more texture than tasty

The repeated reference to tannins also points us in the direction of this description being a textural one. Tannins are compounds found in red wine, and they add all kinds of mouthfeels. Grainy, fine, silky, coarse, rustic, these are all words used to describe the feeling of a tannic wine in your mouth.

A couple of other wine people in the Instaspace directly referred to texture, which I think helps us expand our definition.

Destiny @yourlocalfoodbestie: The dry feeling left in your mouth after you swallow

Jenny @vinspiredwine: I’ve used dusty to describe the texture of tannins = dusty tannins

Anant @antpant: There is a certain chalkiness and pasty texture to wine. More in Austrian wines than others

And Cassandra @casscharlick sums up her personal feeling of being dusty: The general feeling for most people on New Year’s Day pre-11am.

That is the dustiest hour of the year, isn’t it?

For my subjective tasting brain, tannins always make up a textural experience, but I know they influence how a wine tastes, too. And this idea of characterizing “fine” or “coarse” tannins feels elusive in the same way that the entire discussion of minerality does, because it doesn’t mean that the tannins themselves were ground down to a fine powder. But it does describe how it feels to us…like we’ve got a little bit o’ dust in our mouths.

Dust as microcosm

In her essay, The History of Dust, GinaRae LaCerva writes, “What the wind may carry aloft has profound and mysterious influences far afield. Desert dust is so intimately tied to climate that one does not exist without the other. A dusty period in Asia increases snowfall in California.”

In the wine world, we’re well acquainted with the interconnectedness of all things, especially when it comes to climate. LaCerva writes, “a particle reveals a world much beyond its boundaries.” Did we instinctively adopt this descriptor into wine discourse not only because it so accurately describes the textural element of some wines, but also because it serves as a poetic force?

Just like dust, wine is a microcosm.

Per LaCerva’s poetic, yet strikingly accurate description, dust is also an atmospheric element made of various materials in the world. We can look at dusty as a tasting note in the same way. It’s an atmospheric element that we may not even notice unless we look for it. And even though it’s not a prominent feature, its absence would make all the difference.

I’m toying with the idea of writing a Part 2 where I trace this descriptor back in wine to try and understand when and why we started using it. Stay tuned!