Did you ever wonder why people smell a wine prior to actually tasting it? And, yes, there is a really good reason for doing that!
You’ve heard it said that, “The nose knows” and this is certainly the case with tasting wine. The human nose is capable of differentiating between thousands of unique scents. It’s the nose that allows us to get a handle on the variety of flavors a wine presents, while the tongue is limited to sensing: salty, sweet, bitter and sour. To truly taste wine you will need to recruit the nose to pick up the flavor scents and the tongue to help discern the tastes.
In general, a wine’s “aroma,” or “nose,” is the smell of the wine in the glass. The aroma can be floral, citrus, fruity, vegetal, earthy or any number of familiar scents depending on the grape used, the winemaking process implemented and the wine’s storage conditions.
There are three wine aromas –
- Primary Wine Aromas – are derived directly from the fruit.
- Secondary Wine Aromas – come from the fermentation process and may be subtly or significantly influenced by the winemaker.
- Tertiary Wine Aromas – are a direct result of the wine aging process.
While learning about aroma or “nose”, the wine wheel (invented by Ann C. Noble) can be helpful to discern the many aromas.
Image by Frank Kovalchek / Alaskan Dude.