🍷 Wine aroma

Wine aroma is the smells we sense in wine. They depend on the grape variety, on fermentation and on ageing. So aroma is split into three groups. Primary aromas come from the grape itself: fruit, flowers, herbs. Secondary ones arise in fermentation: smells of yeast, butter, bread. Tertiary ones come with the years in barrel and bottle: nuts, tobacco, leather, mushrooms.

Tertiary smells together are called the bouquet of the wine. To make describing aroma easier, the aroma wheel was devised, a circular chart that moves from general words such as "fruit" to precise ones: "apple", "pear", "cherry". It helps to find words for what you sense.

Sometimes minerality is noticed in wine, "stony" shades, but this word is disputed. You can learn to tell smells apart through practice: smelling wine, fruit and spices and comparing. Do not be afraid to be wrong: everyone has their own nose, and descriptions are always a little subjective. The main thing is to enjoy it and learn something new.