It smells... like wine? Rest assured, everyone has been there. Fruits, flowers, wood, underbrush, animal notes: this is how to categorize the hundreds of aromas of wine into a few main families, train your nose, and guess the age of a bottle just by sniffing it.
The main families of wine aromas serve to classify the hundreds of scents that a glass can emit: fruits, flowers, pastries, woods, underbrush, minerals, animals, not to mention a separate family for faults. Categorizing what one smells into one of these boxes is already starting to describe a wine.
Why this categorization? Because these scents are not always easy to recognize, even for seasoned tasters. Rather than immediately searching for the exact word (raspberry or currant?), the taster first identifies the family and then refines their assessment. Here, briefly, is what each of the main aroma families contains:
Fruits: citrus (bergamot, lemon, lime, mandarin, orange, grapefruit), red fruits (cherry, strawberry, wild strawberry, raspberry, currant), black fruits (blackcurrant, black cherry, fig, blackberry, blueberry), tropical fruits (pineapple, banana, passion fruit, pomegranate, lychee, mango).Flowers: acacia, hawthorn, chamomile, honeysuckle, orange blossom, wallflower, iris, jasmine, lilac, carnation, peony, rose, violet, and by extension, honey.Pastries: fresh butter, biscuit, brioche, fresh cream, pastry cream, milk, yeast, bread crumb, pie crust, marzipan, yogurt.Woods: balsa, new wood, cedar, oak, coconut, patchouli, pine, resinous, sandalwood.Underbrush: Paris mushroom, porcini, dead leaf, chanterelle, humus, moss, earth, truffle.Minerals: chalk, heated pebble, iodine, firework powder, heated flint, hydrocarbons (between oil and fuel).Animals: amber, beeswax, civet, leather, fur, game, meat juice, musk.
A word about minerals: these notes are rare in a wine. If you spot one, there’s a good chance you have a very good wine in your glass (it’s always nice to know).
The classification of wine aromas remains partly subjective: according to tasters, the definitions of families and the scents they contain are not exactly the same. Fruits, for example, can be categorized into stone fruits or seed fruits, berries, orchard fruits... and each person can enrich their list by adding, for instance, different varieties of apples.
The perception itself varies from person to person. It depends on your culinary culture, but also on your genetic heritage. You might smell a lovely scent of rhubarb while your neighbor swears it’s grapefruit? That doesn’t matter. Focus on what you perceive and express it without hesitation.
A little curiosity: a smell you dislike will often be easier for you to detect. And beware of your eyes, as the sense of smell can easily be deceived by the other senses. Just adding a red dye to a white wine can lead most tasters to find notes of red fruits!
This is why blind tasting (bottle slipped into a sock, or even black glasses) is considered the most objective way to discover a wine.
The fruit aromas in wine are divided into several subgroups, from citrus to black fruits, including red and tropical fruits, and some tasters prefer to talk about stone fruits, pome fruits, or orchard fruits. This is often the first family we recognize because these smells have been familiar to us since childhood.
To help you identify them, here are the most common fruits in a glass:
Citrus: bergamot, lemon, lime, mandarin, orange, grapefruit.Red fruits: cherry, strawberry, wild strawberry, raspberry, currant.Black fruits: blackcurrant, black cherry, fig, blackberry, blueberry.Tropical fruits: pineapple, banana, passion fruit, pomegranate, lychee, mango.
These categories are guidelines, not rigid boxes. The cherry, categorized here among red fruits, could just as easily belong to a group of stone fruits if you prefer that classification. You are also free to add the varieties of apples that you can distinguish.
In terms of clues, fruits even indicate the color of the wine when it is not visible: citrus tends to suggest a white wine, while black fruits lean towards a red wine. However, be careful, as the distinction between a powerful, oaky white and a light, fruity red can be easily mistaken.
To train your nose to recognize the aromas of wine, you must first ensure that each scent resonates with you: take the list of aromas, and for each one, try to visualize its fragrance. If nothing comes to mind, it's a sign that it's time to smell it for real.
In practical terms, this means:
buying seasonal fruits and flowers, and smelling them carefullystopping by a perfume shop to smell soliflores (fragrances built around a single flower)biting into chocolate while focusing on its scenttaking walks in the woods to memorize moss, earth, and fallen leavesand even licking stones, if necessary, to understand what is meant by a mineral note!
Just as a musician practices scales, a taster must train their nose. The key is consistency, not excess: practicing often, starting with just one adjective at a time, is enough to make progress.
Also, think about your mouth. We perceive as much through our nose as we do through the back of our palate (the retronasal pathway), and some tasters find this pathway more sensitive, precisely because it is trained at every meal. Pinch your nose while eating: you will no longer really know what you are tasting. This proves that every meal can become a small exercise.
The wine aroma kit in vials is a practical tool for training: it reproduces the main scents encountered in a glass, each contained in a small bottle. The concept is playful, and the game can even be quite fun.
Its purpose is simple. Instead of running around markets and perfume shops to smell blackcurrant, violet, or leather, you have the references at hand, always the same. It is the equivalent, for the nose, of a tuning fork for the ear.
To get the most out of it, use it as a blind tasting: someone hands you a vial without showing you the label, and you first identify the family (fruit, flower, woody, underbrush, animal...), then the specific scent. Sniff gently, several times, rather than taking a big inhale. And don’t get discouraged if you make mistakes: fatigue, a cold, or stress can dull your sense of smell.
One small caveat: a vial isolates a scent, while a wine blends several. The kit helps to establish reference points, but nothing replaces the exercise with real glasses afterward.
To experience a wine step by step during tasting, start with the most prominent smell, determine which family of aromas it belongs to, and then choose the specific aroma within that family. Only then will you look for the second smell, and then the third.
Here’s the procedure:
Serve little: never fill the glass beyond one-third; aromas need space to express themselves.First nose: smell the wine at rest, without moving it. These are the aromas that spontaneously emerge.Air it out: swirl the glass in small circles, the base resting on the table (or in the air, for the more skilled).Second nose: smell again. The scents are usually clearer and more intense. If they remain subtle, shake more vigorously; the wine needs to open up.Sniff, don’t inhale: deep breaths saturate the nose. Gently sniff several times, eyes closed if that helps.Proceed in a funnel: strongest smell, family, specific aroma, possibly its degree of ripeness (fresh fruit? cooked? candied?). Then clear that smell from your mind and search for a second one.
Important exception: with a very old or a very great wine, do not shake the glass; you risk exhausting it. Tilt it gently and smell at different spots, in the center, on the edges; this is enough to grasp the complexity of the bouquet.
Nota Bene: to be completely rigorous, we refer to odors for what we perceive through the nose, and aromas for what we perceive through the retronasal route, that is, through the back of the palate once the wine is in the mouth. This retro-olfaction confirms the odors already sensed or reveals new ones. As for the length of a wine, the time it seems to linger in the mouth after being swallowed, it was once measured in caudalies (one caudalie equals one second), a term now considered a bit snobbish.
Yes, the aromas of wine evolve in the glass during the meal: they are never fixed and change between the moment the wine is served and the end of the evening. The reason can be summed up in one word: oxygen, which has the power to accelerate the passage of time for a wine.
In contact with air, in the glass, the aromas blossom and the tannins gently soften. To enjoy this, make it a habit to observe the wine for a few seconds before each sip, from the nose to the mouth. You won't drink more, but you will taste better, and you will see the wine change its character.
Some wines need a serious boost. A few months after bottling, a wine can close up, as if sulking, and this grumpy phase can last several months. It then needs to be awakened by decanting. The most stubborn may take several hours to open up, and if it remains closed all evening, save it for lunch the next day.
Conversely, an old wine, whose bouquet has refined in the bottle, does not need aeration. A too-rough exposure to oxygen could even make its aromas disappear, as they have become very fragile.
Woody and vanilla aromas in a wine generally indicate that it has been aged in barrels (or casks, it's the same idea). The wood interacts with the wine: it imparts new aromas and a different structure on the palate, while the tannins evolve and soften.
What you can smell in a barrel-aged wine:
vanilla, very typicalnotes from the woody family: oak, new wood, cedar, sandalwood, pine, resinous, coconut, balsa, patchouliindulgent aromas like toasted bread, praline, caramel
On the palate, this often translates to smoothness, roundness, and a velvety texture. In contrast, a wine that rests in a tank, whether it be concrete or stainless steel, receives nothing from its container: it is said that the tank is neutral. It is then the grape that expresses itself, with aromas of fruits, flowers, dried herbs, and a livelier, crunchier sensation.
Two nuances to keep in mind. First, the woodiness does not always come from a real barrel: for about twenty years, this taste has been so sought after that many estates have added staves or wood chips to their tanks to imitate it at a lower cost. Secondly, overly woody flavors are no longer desirable today. Finally, wood also influences color, as a white wine aged in a barrel will be more golden than a Mediterranean white vinified in a tank, which can deceive the eye.
Aromas of compote in a wine generally reveal a generous climate: the grapes have received plenty of sunshine. Conversely, aromas of tart or green fruits indicate a lack of warmth during ripening.
The explanation lies in the vineyard. As they ripen, between veraison and harvest (about a hundred days after flowering), grapes gain sugar and lose acidity. The more they have been warmed by the sun, the more the fruit evokes ripe, cooked, or stewed characteristics. The less sun they have received, the more they retain that vibrant and green quality.
Several grape varieties illustrate this connection well:
Grenache, a grape of Spanish origin that thrives in warm climates and is not afraid of drought, produces wines with rich aromas of prunes, dried figs, and garrigue.Mourvèdre, with its thick skin, needs a lot of sunshine to ripen.Pinot Noir, on the other hand, prefers cooler conditions: its skin is thin, and in a hot climate, it ripens too quickly, resulting in aromas of little interest.
Color can complement the investigation (a pale wine suggests a cool climate, while a very colored wine indicates a warm climate), but with caution: some grape varieties remain lightly colored even in warm latitudes.
The evolution of wine aromas follows the seasons of its life: a young wine has a spring-like character, takes on summer accents in adulthood, evokes autumn at its peak, and in the early stages of decline, then winter at the end of its life. This is an excellent marker for estimating the maturity of a bottle.
Here’s what you can sense at each stage:
Spring (young wine): greenery and vegetation, buds, flowers, fresh fruits, sour fruits, candies.Summer (adult wine): dried herbs, spices, ripe fruits, cooked fruits, spices, coniferous trees, roasted and toasted aromas, mineral notes like petrol.Autumn (aged wine): dried fruits, stewed fruits, honey, biscuits, underbrush, mushrooms, tobacco, leather, fur, and other animal scents.Winter (declining wine): candied fruits, game, musk, amber, truffle, earth.
Note that these seasons do not correspond to a fixed number of years. At 5 years, one wine may still be young while another is already old. It is therefore the aromas, not the vintage on the label, that indicate the wine's status.
On a personal taste note, if you enjoy blooming fields, crunchy apples, and juicy strawberries, you will likely be drawn to young wines. If autumn, reddened forests, and nuts resonate more with you, it is rather the old wines that await you (your wallet might feel it less, as an old wine costs more).
The aromas of truffle, game, and musk appear in an old wine as it enters the final season of its life: alongside them, one also finds candied fruits, amber, and earthy notes. These aromas specific to an aged wine are sometimes referred to as tertiary aromas.
To recognize them, rely on two families:
Animals: amber, beeswax, civet, leather, fur, game, meat juice, musk.Underbrush: button mushroom, porcini, chanterelle, dead leaves, humus, moss, earth, truffle.
Certain grape varieties are renowned for this bouquet. Mourvèdre, sometimes tough and earthy in its youth, develops aromas of leather, game, and truffle with age. Pinot Noir, after a few years, offers a bouquet of autumn forest, leather, musk, and truffle (incredibly chic, say its admirers).
A small warning, though: these scents of humus, earth, mushrooms, or game are very particular and do not appeal to everyone. Do not feel obliged to like old wines just because it seems more sophisticated. If you prefer the vibrant fruit of a young wine, that is just as legitimate a choice.
An old wine eventually loses its aromas: it first goes through smells of gamey meat, rotten fruits, and moldy mushrooms, and then no aroma is left in the glass. This is the end of the cycle, the moment when the wine fades away.
These declining odors belong to the family of faults, which it's better to know how to identify: cardboard, cauliflower, stable, geranium, cork, mold, onion, rotten apple, rancid, shed, mop, sulfur, sweat, cat urine, vinegar. A porous cork that has allowed air to enter can also kill a wine prematurely. It's frustrating, but a bad wine shouldn't ruin an evening.
To avoid opening a bottle too late (or too early), remember a simple idea: every wine has its golden age. A wine is rarely excellent at all stages of its life. One that offers a magnificent autumn bouquet is rarely charming in its youth, much like an old philosopher is rarely a good football player!
In summary: categorize what you smell by families (fruits, flowers, pastries, woody notes, underbrush, minerals, animals), train your nose on real fruits, real flowers, or a set of vials, always smell in a funnel shape, from the most prominent scent to the most subtle, and read the seasons in your glass to know the state of the wine. The simplest thing now? Open a bottle, pour a third of a glass, and start searching.
Author Audrey on 24 September 2021
Gastronomy and Food : Food
Author Audrey on 20 June 2024
Gastronomy and Food : Diet and Dietetics