The Nose Knows

Once again, the Winedaddy was on the road for his day job. I'll spare you the details but I spent 2 days in Montgomery, Alabama (a state not known for their advances in viticulture). That was the bad news. The good news was that my head cold that had been plaguing me for over a week was, well, still plaguing me. Why was that "good news?" It meant that I couldn't taste a single thing and thus, wasn't missing out on any of my regular wine drinking.

It got me thinking on how important, actually, how crucial your sense of smell is when tasting wine. This isn't a new concept by any stretch of the imagination but without having a head cold for almost 2 years, and with my wine intake increasing exponentially over those 2 years, I really never had the reason to think about the role of scent in wine consumption.

There really is no wrong or right way to describe wines. If you like something and it smells like cotton candy to you, then it smells like cotton candy. Conversely, if you think a wine smells like an elephant to you, then it smells like an elephant (that's how the Winewife likes to describe some earthy wines that we drink). Somewhere, someone, created a "tool" called the Wine Wheel. (actually, it was developed by a UC Davis professor, Anne C. Noble back in 1990 to better describe the scents associated with wine). Since then, there has been much written and discussed about how to smell and taste wine. Most of it is garbage in my humble opinion but I did stumble across the "Online Wine Tasting Course" from the Wine Lovers Page that I found really well written and informative without being too snobby.

But back to the wheel. Personally...I think the wheel is a huge gimmick. I don't need a colorful disc to tell me what a wine smells and tastes like. I need some good cheese, a nice baguette, and some clear sinuses.