scratch 'n sniff — why you should smell your wine.
This is my dog. She’s called Scratch. She can smell anywhere from 1000 to 10,000 times better than me. That’s some powerful whiff by the woofer. It’s been recorded that, under perfect conditions, a dog can smell its owner from up to around 20kms away. While we don’t have that sort of olfactory super power, when it comes to tasting wine we use our schnoz much more than you might imagine.
Many of you will recall being a little kid and hating something your Mum or Dad put on your dinner plate. The only way to scoff the sordid business down was to hold your nose. We learn pretty early on in life that a blocked nose reduces flavour experience. In fact, our sense of smell in responsible for about 80% of what we taste.
It’s a really good reason why winemakers and wine reviewers freaked out when the pandemic really arrived in all its fury. One of the symptoms of infection was a loss of smell. A daunting prospect when you rely on the sense for the income that covers the outgoings!
“Without our sense of smell, our sense of taste is limited to only five distinct sensations: sweet, salty, sour, bitter and the newly discovered “umami” or savory sensation. All other flavours that we experience come from smell.”
— Source; Science World scienceworld.ca
Scents go straight to the brain's smell center, known as the olfactory bulb. The olfactory bulb is directly connected to the part of the brain responsible for memory and emotional processing. When you put your nose in a glass and the aromatic characteristics of the wine are inhaled, your olfactory is sending a message to your brain to seek familiarity. For example, a lot of people will explain they can smell ‘sweaty armpits’ in a glass of Sauvignon Blanc. Hardly appealing but pretty comical that as soon as someone mentions it and we smell the wine ourselves we too can smell the collective BO of a front row. It’s simple chemistry and the same science that can be found in a footie players armpit can also be found in wine.
“An enzyme called C-T lyase, found in the bacterium Staphylococcus hominis, which dwells in human armpits, feed on odorless chemicals released in sweat, which the enzyme then converts into thioalcohols—a pungent compound responsible for the offending smell.”
— Source; Science.org
Thiols are also found in wine and those thiols can have a variety of aromas and smells. Some of negative smells, sweaty armpits or cats pee and others contribute positively to a wine, baked apricots, cherries or perhaps the delightful, rarefied waft of a frangipani flower.
Given none of the aromas just outlined indicate a bad wine but merely characteristics of a type of wine, the complexities of wine enjoyment are off the charts and it’s easy to see why it might be intimidating.
The aroma of a wine can tell much of the story before a single drop has past your lips. The scent can reveal a specific variety and perhaps, for those very serious about all this wine tasting business, the place the wine might have been made. Those wine geeks can also gauge how old a wine is partly by smell (with sight also assisting). And we can smell wine faults.
If your wine has a cork rather than a screw cap, and you get a whiff of wet woollen socks when you lift the glass to your nose, chances are your wine is suffering from cork taint and irreparably damaged - at least beyond enjoyment.
Should you detect a slight hint of vinegar on the nose, then you may have left your opened wine in the pantry for a day or two too long. That’s oxidation and oxygen is an enemy of wine…for a long period of exposure. It can, however, benefit it.
Let’s talk glassware.
While drinking wine out of whatever you like is massively encouraged here at not serious, there is a reason why people wank on about ‘the right wine glass’ so much. That wanky wine swirl that you see people do has a purpose. When you swirl a wine around in the glass, you’re inviting oxygen to merge with the juice. A glass that is designed to allow this or even enhance it means you’ll get the optimal flavour from the wine you’ve chosen to buy. At this juncture, oxygen is an appealing element assisting the wine to open up. It moves the aroma compounds around so your schnoz can really soak it in. A tumbler will still allow wafts of aromatics to greet you as you go to drink. However, swirling the wine isn’t easy so chances are you’re missing a bit of aromatic action. Hence, all the fuss over a glass by the serious wine folk out there. Regardless of the vessel, before you scoff it straight down, you should inhale deeply, close your eyes and let your nose do the talking to your brain. What familiar, memorised smells can you name? Cut grass? Capsicum? Herbs? Sweaty Armpits? You could be drinking a Sauvignon Blanc. Cherries? Black currant? Perhaps you’ve a Pinot Noir in your Keep Cup. Baked Apricots and a touch of vanilla? Well, that could be a Chardonnay. The glass and its shape will massively help with all of this weird, aromatic trickery. Don’t get overwhelmed by all this though. Remember, generally speaking, wine is about social lubrication and spending time with your pals. The style of wine glass won’t change the hum of your homies one iota!
Top Tip:
if you’re drinking your vino from a coffee cup that won’t allow the aeration action required to open it up, you can pour the whole bottle into a jug - any jug will do as long as it’s clean and free of any dishwashing odours. If the jug isn’t decor worthy of the dinner party, pour the wine back into the bottle. You will have brought the wine to life and no one need swirl a single mug.
Let’s talk temperature.
Another factor for getting the most from your honker when honing your wine tasting skills is temperature. If it’s white wine, for Pete’s sake, don’t snap freeze the stuff. Aroma compounds freak out in the cold and stay tightly stuck to each other. If your wine is too cold, you won’t get any olfactory satisfaction no matter how furiously you swirl that glass about.
And don’t over bake a red wine. It will be all flabby prunes and dates by the time you get within a country mile of it. How disappointing. (NB: chilled red wine is actually the absolute biz but you want something that lends itself to the tightness of the cold so think light, bright reds that feel like they can handle that jandal. If you’re unsure — experiment. What have you got to lose?)
Look, as I’ve just unwittingly demonstrated, there are no real rules to enjoying a good bottle of vino and regrettably wine tasting can make you feel seriously self conscious. Chances are you’ll inevitably catch a fair bit of the wine aroma without having to swirl your glass. No one likes a wine geek putting the serious into not serious wine tasting when you’re just trying to chill and enjoy yourself.
However, life is short and evidently a great deal of it is experienced through your face - eyes, ears and ya big old sniffer. So, do yourself a flavour favour, find a comfy spot on the couch, cuddle up next to the doggo (who could totally tell you the breed of dog that lives on that vineyard where the wine in your glass is made) and swirl and then sniff away. Go deep. Right into the diaphragm. You’ll definitely get more out of the wine you’ve just dropped your hard-earned pesos on.
we’re super grateful to our pals at antipodes water company. they supply us with the good water for our chats. antipodes is an artesian water that contains no chemicals, and when you’re pouring an organic wine that is gold. the mineral content also keeps the palate fresh so you can taste the wine the way the winemaker and nature intended you to. thanks antipodes, you’re the bomb. antipodes.co.nz
