Diving into the nose of a wine. Learn how to scent and decode wine flavours. And what they can tell you about what you’re drinking. Plenty of infographics and examples!
Welcome to the third part of my wine tasting series. Letting go of pretentiousness and fear, I will guide you step by step throughout this fascinating “art”. My four-part series about wine tasting is structured as follows:
- Introduction to wine tasting and outline of the PIQUANTE method
- PIQUANTE method: prepare and inspect
- PIQUANTE method: swirl and sniff (this article)
- PIQUANTE method: examine the palate and draw evaluations
The PIQUANTE method is a systematic approach that I always use when wine tasting. The acronym “PIQUANTE” stands for Prepare, Inspect, QUietly smell, Agitate, Nose, Taste and Evaluate. In this article I will focus on steps 3, 4 and 5: QUietly smell, Agitate and Nose. As you can imagine, this part is heavily based on the sense of olfaction. Are you ready to become the vinous equivalent of a truffle dog?
QUietly smell: identify the subtle scents
The wine has been poured into your glass. You have duly noted all the visual characteristics of wine (as per my previous article). Now it’s time to use your sense of smell. For a long time, olfaction has been dismissed as an “inferior” sense. However, recent scientific studies have highlighted that the human sense of smell rivals that of dogs. One more reason to be confident. You can gather loads of information using your nose!
Take a sniff of your wine before swirling the glass. This first approach to the wine’s scents will reveal its most volatile and delicate flavours. In this way, I often detect nuanced floral and spicy notes. When you smell the wine after swirling the glass, these more delicate scents are easily overridden by more potent aromas (fruity flavours or oak for example).
Agitate: shake, shake, shake!
Time to give your glass a good swirl! Unfortunately, the very idea of swirling a wine glass in public is often perceived as a snobbish act. Like you are trying too hard to act the wine connoisseur. Or perhaps it’s a legacy of the past, from a time when wine was only accessible to the rich?
Regardless of the reason, you’re only hurting yourself by not getting over it. Agitating your glass is not only curiously satisfying, it is the best way to let the wine speak to you. Swirling is of paramount importance for two reasons. Firstly, it oxygenates the wine. As the liquid comes into contact with air through the act of swirling, the wine starts to open up. Its aromas unfold, releasing all the nuances to the taster. Secondly, swirling a wine allows you to appreciate its tears (or legs). This visual aspect provides you with some information about the wine’s viscosity and alcohol content, as I explained in my previous article.
Now that you understand its importance, you might ask what’s the best way to swirl your wine glass. Having observed people who have been scientifically tasting wine for a while, I have noticed three techniques:
- The safe swirler: these drinkers place their glass safely on the table, then make a few circles with its base. I recommend using this approach when attending your first wine tastings – it causes minimal spillage!
- The protective spinner: some people place the palm of one hand over the rim (to avoid drops coming out during the movement) and use the other to gently swirl the glass. A bit of an old-fashioned approach, but it totally serves its purpose!
- The brave shaker: the most audacious of wine tasters use only one hand to swirl; using calibrated wrist flicks, these swirling experts are able to force the liquid to perform circles that are perfectly contained inside their glasses
You can pick any of the three alternatives above. Go for what is most comfortable for you. However, make sure you give the wine a good swirl. You really want the oxygen to open up the wine so the latter mellows a bit. Regardless of your technique of choice, practice is always a good idea. You can start testing your swirling abilities by using water in a glass. At least with water, if you have an accident, your clothes won’t be spoiled!
On a side note, you can only comfortably swirl if the glass is designed well and it doesn’t contain too much wine. Check my previous article to see the optimal glass shape for wine tasting.
Nose: sniffing after the swirl
You have vigorously agitated the wine. Now it’s time to dip your nose into the glass. Don’t be shy: your nostrils really do need to be in the glass. The closer your nose is to the liquid, the better you will be able to identify the wine’s individual scents.
Different schools of thoughts exist regarding the proper way to inhale a wine’s aroma. Some tasters prefer short and swift sniffs. Others, longer and more intense ones. Try both ways and see which works better for you. Once you have identified your sniffing preference, stick with that and incorporate it into your tasting routine.
While your nostrils are deep into your wine glass, it’s a good idea to wiggle your nose in all directions inside the container. This way you will catch different nuances and unveil some hidden aspects of the wine’s nose.
Most importantly, remember: don’t overdo! Our nose is a sensitive instrument. It gets easily stressed if overstimulated. The first couple of inhalations are the most important ones. They will reveal the most significant pieces of information.
If you keep smelling over and over again, you will get less and less useful impressions. Your brain will get overwhelmed and the olfactory stimuli will blur. In the long run, it might even make you feel that you have lost your smelling skills! If that happens, don’t despair. Your nose is sensitive, but it also recovers pretty quickly. Spend a couple of minutes away from your perfumed glass. Relax your mind. When you come back to the wine, you will feel better and sense more!
The most interesting wines evolve in the glass. Therefore it’s a good idea to evaluate their nose at different intervals over time. You can first sniff the wine as soon as it is poured into the glass. Then wait a few minutes (even an hour if you can) and give the wine another whiff. You will be amazed to discover how much certain wines change over time!
What should I notice in the nose of a wine?
Once you know how to swirl a glass and inhale the wine’s kaleidoscope of flavours, you might ask yourself: what should I note? There are four areas of interest: condition, intensity of flavours, the flavours‘ nature and development state. I will now go through all of them.
Condition
The nose should immediately reveal whether a wine is healthy or faulty. A healthy wine does not feature any unpleasant aromas. In other words, a healthy wine is one that does not smell off. In this case, the wine is said to be clean.
Conversely, a wine is called unclean when it has unattractive odours. Most of the time, these are indicators of a fault in the wine. Each type of fault taints the wine in a different way. For example, if your wine smells of soggy and damp cardboard, most likely it has been affected by trichloroanisole (TCA) and is corked. TCA is probably the most common wine fault. There are other unpleasant scents which can reveal different wine faults. Below is a list of the most common unpleasant smells and their corresponding wine faults:
- rotten eggs and boiled cabbage – reduction
- toffee and caramel while lacking freshness – oxidation
- farmyard, sweat or a donkey – brettanomyces
- vinegar and nail polish remover – volatile acidity
Intensity of flavours
I’m sure you have already experienced how much wine can differ in terms of intensity of flavours. When describing intensity, the following terms are generally used:
- Light: the wine has faint scents, difficult to catch and pinpoint
- Pronounced: the aromas are very strong and concentrated. They are detectable even before dipping your nose into the glass
- Medium: indicates a moderate intensity, between light and pronounced
When analysing the quantitative dimensions of a wine (intensity of flavours, acidity, body, tannins, length) the most adopted have either a 3-point or 5-point scale. In the 3-point scale, you use terms such as low (or light), medium and high (or pronounced). You can use a 5-point scale if you want a more precise evaluation. In such a case, you add 2 intermediate values: medium- and medium+. In the case of intensity of flavours, medium- means that the wine displays a moderate concentration of flavours, with it being closer to light than to pronounced. Conversely, if a wine has a medium+ intensity, its flavours are closer to pronounced (but not quite that) than to light. I use a 5-point scale, so you’ll often find the terms medium- and medium+ throughout the tasting notes found here on Wine and Other Stories.
Flavours’ nature
I extensively wrote about flavours and their nature in another article. You can refer to that for an in-depth view to aromas in wine. For the purposes of this section, here’s a brief summary of wine flavours.
Aromas in wine can be classified into three main categories based on how they originate:
- Primary flavours: derive from the grape and the surrounding environment; they develop during the fermentation process
- Secondary flavours: are bestowed by winemaking practices rather than by mother nature; they mostly come from oak usage, malolactic fermentation and lees contact
- Tertiary flavours: are solely ascribed to age; they might derive from oxidative evolution, anaerobic processes (in bottle), or both
The above categories can be further split into different clusters that indicate similar scents from an organoleptic standpoint. Each cluster includes different aromas. For example, one of the clusters of the primary aromas is “red fruit”, which includes flavours such as red cherry, cranberry, strawberry and red plum.
When sniffing a wine, I recommend to follow a top-down approach to flavours’ recognition. Think about each of the above categories (primary, secondary, tertiary). First check if the wine features a particular category. If that is the case, go through its clusters and determine if some aromas of that cluster are present in the wine. Then try to be even more specific by finding out which flavours in the cluster you can identify.
As a reminder, I will link again the wine flavours infographic presented in my article What you need to know about wine flavours. For each of the three categories, it shows the different clusters and specific flavours you can encounter.
Development state of wine
The presence or absence of different categories of flavours is typically used to describe the state of development of a particular wine. With a degree of simplification:
- A youthful wine is one where primary and secondary flavours dominate; there are no tertiary flavours
- In a developing wine the primary and secondary flavours are prevalent, but some tertiary aromas have started to emerge
- A wine is described as fully developed when the predominant aromas are tertiary. Primary and secondary flavours can still be present, but they are not prevalent
- A wine is called tired when it has passed its best state: its aromas have faded and are no longer attractive
While quality wines follow a natural progression throughout these states, it’s important to understand that not all wines benefit from age. In fact, most wines don’t age well and are intended to be consumed soon after their release. These wines just proceed from youthful to tired. They lack the structure and the flavour intensity to positively evolve over time.
In the following table (conveniently scrollable horizontally!) you can find a few examples of typical flavour profiles of some notable styles.
| Example | Primary Flavours | Secondary Flavours | Tertiary Flavours | Development State |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1-year-old Sancerre | Green fruit (apple, pear, gooseberry) Citrus (lime, lemon) Herbal (grass, nettle) | - | - | Youthful |
| 2-year-old Left Bank Bordeaux | Black fruit (cassis, blackberry) Floral (violet) Herbal (black currant leaves) Spices (black pepper, anise, balsamic) | Oak (cedar box, toast, vanilla) | - | Youthful |
| 9-year-old Left Bank Bordeaux | Black fruit (cassis, blackberry) Floral (violet) Herbal (black currant leaves) Spices (black pepper, anise, balsamic) | Oak (cedar box, toast, vanilla) | Dried fruit (prunes, black figs) Bottle age (leather, tobacco, meat) | Developing |
| 2-year-old Mosel Riesling | Citrus (grapefruit, lemon) Stone fruit (nectarine) Floral (lemon flower, honeysuckle) | - | - | Youthful |
| 15-year-old Mosel Auslese Riesling | Stone fruit (nectarine, peach, apricot) Tropical fruit (mango) Floral (lemon flower, honeysuckle) | - | Fruit development (marmalade, dried apricot) Bottle age (honey, hay, mushroom) | Fully developed |
| 7-year-old premium White Burgundy (chardonnay) | Stone fruit (nectarine, peach) Citrus (ripe grapefruit) Floral (lemon flowers, honeysuckle) | Oak (toast, hazelnuts) Dairy (butter, whipped cream) Yeasty (bread dough) | Bottle age (honey, mushroom) | Developing |
| Oloroso Sherry | Citrus (citrus zest, bitter orange) | Oak (toast, smoke) Acetaldehyde (saline minerality, green olives, tangy) | Oxidative (caramel, toffee, walnuts, hazelnuts) Bottle age (honey, hay) | Fully developed |
What’s next
That’s the end of the third part of my wine tasting series. In this article, I focused on the olfactive analysis of the process. I went through steps 3, 4 and 5 of my PIQUANTE systematic approach to wine tasting: QUietly smell, Agitate and Nose.
My next article will conclude the series and deal with the last two steps of the process: Taste and Evaluate. I will discuss the flavours that can be found on the palate, the structural components of wine and finally how to consider all the information gathered to draw conclusive evaluations about the wine and its quality.
As usual, if you have any questions don’t be shy and drop me a line here in the comment section or on social media. I will be more than happy to help. Stay in touch!
The fourth and final part of my wine tasting series is now available here.
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