Smell

Of all the senses, smell is one of the most important. We can judge, perhaps subjectively, what smells good or bad, but sometimes it is hard to pinpoint exactly what you’re smelling.

Other times, a specific scent can carry you away. Your grandfather’s cologne; mother’s ratatouille; freshly cut grass; lilacs on May long weekend. The smells  are familiar, but when taken out of context can sometimes be hard to recall. While other times, in the mind’s eye, you are transported to the kitchen as a child, waiting excitedly for something to emerge from the oven.

Smells can be powerful enough to bring you to tears. A time machine to a unique moment and place all your own. A smell can be familiar to many, yet distinct to your own memory.

In the wine world, smells are often the most captivating part of wine. Sometimes I would rather just sit and smell  wine and not even drink it.

In wine, there are three main types of aromas: primary, secondary and tertiary.

Primary aromas are those of fruit. Of course wine is made from fruit so it should smell like it, but many grapes have a certain catalogue of aromas and depending on where they grow can smell differently. For example, a chardonnay grown in a cooler climate might have more citrus notes and/or apple and pear aromas up front. Whereas for a chardonnay grown in a warmer clime, the fruit character will be more tropical and you might find notes like papaya, guava and mango.

Secondary aromas in wine arise from things that the winemaker will do to the wine: adding specific types of yeast, malolactic fermentation, and oak for example. Broadly speaking oak is used as a frame for which to hold the fruit characters and to help  accentuate the wine’s quality. Generally oak is either American, which brings aromas like cola and vanilla, or French which brings warm baking spices like cinnamon, clove and nutmeg.

Almost all of the the best wines in the world spend a good amount of time in French oak, with a few notable exceptions. Oak acts as a seasoning for wine, and when used judiciously and correctly can do wonders to elevate a wine.

The third aroma profile you will find in wine consist of tertiary notes. These will indicate that a wine has aged, either in the bottle or for a longer time in oak, and are highly coveted by many. These might include mushrooms, leather, nuts, maybe florals.

Of course wine aromas can be markedly subjective in that sometimes one might detect certain tertiary notes while others may not. This is not to say that these aromas are not present in the wine, just that people’s history with certain aromas might be more pronounced or broad. I never knew what white pepper was growing up and had to seek it out to learn about and experience it.

But there are certain smells that can’t be argued. A Chablis that smells like pineapple might be a stretch. But if you say apple and I say pear, at least we’re hanging around the same orchard.

Smells are at once unique to each nose and common among us. It is not a sense we pay much attention to until it is gone. So, the next time you encounter a smell you enjoy, stop for a moment and spend some time with it, allowing it to carry you away.