04/01/08 Wine Smells

Welcome to Vine to Wine this is your host Linda Moran. Yesterday we answered an email about a wine that didn't smell very good. So today I will give you a few ideas about what a bad wine might smell like. As I mentioned yesterday my WWOW group, that's Wild Women on Wine, had a session where wine judge Coke Roth guided us through an evening of tasting and smelling stinky wines. Woo sounds like fun eh? Well actually it was and we all learned a few things. For the next two days I will share some of that insight with you. One item which seemed to resonate with everyone was the topic of volatile acidity  it measures the acetic acid, which is like vinegar. Volatile Acidity is usually a mixture of acetic acid and ethyl acetate which smells like finger nail polish along with acetone yes the smell of nail polish remover. It is sometimes subtle and other times it just hits you before you even get the glass all of the way to your nose. Most of the time I have experienced it was when the smell was rather subtle. At first I could tell something wasn't right and then I realized the familiar scent and knew the wine was off. That is not a good thing. Another off odor is called acetaldehyde - when a wine is exposed somehow to too much oxygen and it becomes oxidized. It has that smell of sherry or I think rancid nuts. Join me tomorrow as we continue to discuss recognizing a flaw in your glass of wine and thanks for joining me on today's Vine to Wine.