Smelling the aromas of wine is the most important phases of wines enjoyment. Our nose sends messages to the brain to differentiate and recognize different scents. There are 200 compounds of wine we can recognize
When detecting the aromas of wine it should be pleasant. An unpleasant smell could be a sign that the wine has spoiled. If you detect the smell of wet paper, wet dog, or mold, then the wine may be tainted, commonly referred to as "corked". This is as a result of bacteria invading the cork.
There is no wrong answer when it comes to describing a wine's aroma as everyone's sense of smell is different.
There are two different techniques to enjoy the aromas of wine.
The first is the chest, chin and nose 'test'. Without swirling the wine, put a glass of wine at your chest. Sniff to see if you can smell anything. If aromas are detected from the chest it's an aromatic grape variety.
Next, bring the glass of wine to your chin; it should be even more aromatic.
Now stick your nose in the glass, take a large sniff to pick up all the aromas. Sniff to draw in as much aromas as you can.
A particularly aromatic wine is called 'aromatically intense'. A 'floral' wine is called 'perfumed'. A low aroma wine is called 'neutral' or 'muted'.
Now swirl the wine to release more aromas in the glass. Now do the chest, chin and nose test again. Notice how you smell more or stronger aromas of the wine.
The second wine tasting technique you can detect aromas or bouquet at the bottom, top and middle of the glass.
Swirl the glass of wine, and then tilt the glass slightly for sniffing. The heavy bouquets drop to the bottom of the glass. The lighter aromas are floating up and out of the top of the glass.
It's common for fruity aromas to float to the bottom of the tilted glass. The fruity aromas in white wine you may smell lemon, lime, green apple, apricot, peach, pineapple, mango papaya. In red wine you may smell the berries - blackberry, blueberry, strawberry, raspberry, cranberry or cherry, plum.
Once you have smelled the aromas at the bottom of the glass, swirl the wine glass again. Stop, tilt the glass slightly - put your nose at the top of the glass to smell the lighter aromas. Aromas like floral, rosy, lavender or wild flowers - perfumey aromas. If there are spicy aromas like black pepper, ginger, clove, nutmeg or cinnamon they could be at the top of the glass also.
Now try smelling the bouquet in the middle of the wine glass. OK, this is a little embarrassing. Swirl, now take short, quick in hales like a dog, in the middle of the glass. This technique is an actual wine tasting term called the cocker spaniel sniff. With this step you will get earth, wet dirt or anything with wood like oak, smoke, pine, sap or cedar bouquets.
Have a good time swirling and sniffing your wine and identifying the different wine aromas. Have some fun detecting the aromas of wine.
Description of smells you may detect:
White wines:
- peach
- apricot
- honeysuckle
- flowers
- grapefruit
- herbs
- vanilla
- toast
- butter
Red Wines:
- chocolate
- strawberries
- black cherries
- black pepper
- white pepper
- licorice
- tobacco
- smoke
- burnt toast
- vanilla
- earth
- cedar
- yeast
