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| The Course |
| How to taste wine |
The Nose
The second stage in tasting is to smell the wine. The nose has always been considered
to be our sentinel and it is said that there is no chemical analysis which cannot
be carried out by smelling. Wine contains many odorous substances - more than
five hundred have been counted - and these are often mixed together and so weak
that they are at the limits of perception. We should not forget that olfactory
sensations are not fixed and do not last and that smell, a sense which is decidedly
superior to taste, is discontinuous which is why the work done in analysing the
wine through the nose is difficult, requiring great concentration and an excellent
state of health. The substances which give the wine its perfume are called volatile
substances and they evaporate in liquid solutions. They belong to different chemical
families, such as the alcohols, esters, terpenes and so on.
There are three
groups of perfume, classified as primary, secondary and tertiary. The first are
those which come from the grape and are linked to the grape variety (the aromatic
character of a Malvasia, a Brachetto or a Muscat). The second group are those
which originate during the alcoholic fermentation (fruit, flowers, spices, jam,
honey) and the third group are those which form during the maturing and ageing
of the wine (primary and secondary aromas which mingle to evolve into more complex
compounds in what is called the bouquet). In smelling the wine the taster takes
account of the quality of the bouquet and its intensity, persistence and nature.
This only takes a very short time. First the wine is briefly sniffed with the
glass still, then it is sniffed while swirling the wine in the glass, allowing
it to liberate volatile substances on contact with the air.
This direct inhalation
allows the tester to assess the intensity and quality of the wine. Smell also
plays a role when the wine is tasted in the mouth and swallowed - the perfumes
are perceived indirectly or at the back of the nose (aromas); this operation allows
us to judge the persistence or length of the wine's aroma in the mouth. A wine
is of good quality when it is fine and honest - clean, clear, without bad smells
or faults and it is even more interesting when it has a complex perfume, rich
in composite shades of odour. The more penetrating and intense the wine is, the
more continuous and long-lasting and persistent the bouquet. One tip: do not sniff
over the glass for too long. This way you will not dull your sense of smell.
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