02/16/05 Describing smells

Welcome to Vine to Wine this is your host Linda Moran. On today's program we are going to explore how you can narrow down just what it is that a wine smells like. And We'll address that right after the break. Very often when we read a description of a wine and it is described as having certain smells, it is to remind the drinker of characteristics that it shares with other things we are familiar with. It can be confusing at the very least and many beginners struggle with the whole concept of these descriptions. The descriptions are more like an analogy. It describes fragrances that the wine shares with another fruit or flower or nut, in order to help us to identify what we are experiencing in the wine and to describe its characteristics. The practice of taking smells, and looking more deeply into them, from general to more focused scents must be learned. Describing what you smell, in more specific terms, will contribute to your understanding of the pleasures of wine tasting. To begin with say a wine smell fruity to you  ask yourself what kind of fruit? Is it fresh or dried fruit? Is it citrus, berry, tree fruit such as apples or peaches? Maybe it really smells more like dried figs or altogether different like an artificial fruit? The same principle applies to a spicy smell. Is it like black pepper, or cloves, or cinnamon? If it's floral what kind of flower? The further you challenge yourself to narrow it down the better understanding you will develop of wine and the authors who write about it. To explore this concept further look for a copy of the Univ. of Calif Davis Wine Aroma wheel. And thanks for joining me on today's Vine to Wine.