Aroma versus Bouquet
Welcome to Vine to Wine this is your host Linda Moran. Recently a listener wrote to ask; “When referring to wine a friend says that aroma and bouquet are not the same. I say that they are two words used interchangeably to describe the same thing.”
Which of us is correct?
To the common wine drinker, when it comes to describing fragrances emitted by a wine, the terms aroma and bouquet are often used interchangeably. However, in more academic wine circles, the terms describe differing aspects of wine fragrance. The term aroma is generally focused upon fragrances that originate in the fruit itself such as the varietal smell of the type of grape the wine is made from and the accompanying fragrance characteristics associated with that particular grape variety. The bouquet refers to the fragrances that evolved during the winemaking process such as the yeasty smell in