Wine Aromas

Welcome to Vine to Wine this is your host Linda Moran. Recently I was reading a trade magazine and I came across a reference to tertiary aroma and I thought of you. I thought you might like to know what that means in “wine speak”.

The fragrance or smells of our wine has a great deal to do with our enjoyment and understanding of a wine. The intensity and evolution of the smell of a wine has in part to do with the level of ripeness of the fruit at the time it is harvested. The aromas are broken into three categories .  The initial of which is referred to as the primary aromas. These are the fragrances of the fruit itself. Think of the difference between the way a very ripe piece of fruit such as a peach or a strawberry smells, as opposed to one that is not very ripe at all. It is a good ripeness level that helps with the fragrance. These aromas will carry through the winemaking process. In the next category referred to as the secondary aromas it is the smells that are brought about by vinification or winemaking which are being referred to here. Smells perhaps from the yeast used to promote the fermentation. Now the final category is the one referred to as tertiary. These are the fragrances that come from the aging process, the time spent in the bottle. They will of course vary depending upon many things such as the age and the size of the bottle. So there you have it tertiary defined. Remember to send your wine questions to Linda at Vine to Wine dot net and thank you for joining me on today’s Vine to Wine.