Trivia Question: What is the difference between the nose,
aroma and bouquet of a wine?
Answer: twenty-five percent chemistry, twenty-five percent
imagination, and fifty percent snobbery.
Okay. Maybe it is not all that easy.
Chemistry
Here is a simple answer to the question: the nose and aroma of a wine are terms applied to young wines. The bouquet of a wine is a term applied to a
“mature” wine—you know, the kind of wine a person with an
extensive wine cellar might buy and store for a number of years so it can age
in the bottle (a legitimate aging process).
Here is a more complex answer to the question: generally speaking, the nose of a wine is the broad category for a wine’s scent, and it is
made up of all the aromas the wine emits. The aroma and bouquet refer
to the scent or smell of a wine, composed of compounds derived from the grape,
the fermentation process, and aging. Tasters tend to use aroma both in the broadest sense to refer to any and all odors, and
also more specifically to those found in a young wine. Bouquet in tasting parlance is commonly reserved for older wines,
recognizing, as everyone knows, that
wines change significantly when they are aged in oak.
Oh—but---what if the wine is stored in a steel tank?
The fermentation and aging of wine is perhaps the most
important aspect of creating an outstanding finished product. The length of
time a wine is aged and the material in which it is aged can make the
difference between producing a mediocre product versus an award-winning contribution.
Oak wine barrels have been used for centuries in the
fermentation and aging processes of wine. Aging wine in oak wine barrels
provides the wine with aromas that would typically be found on your spice rack
– nutmeg, cinnamon, allspice, vanilla and clove to name a few. It can also
impart (a dirty little secret) flavors from a wine that have been previously
aged, and that may not be a good thing. You gotta clean those barrels!
Stainless steel wine containers, on the other hand, can be
used forever and are easy to clean, whereas the life of an oak barrel is
between two and three years. In addition, steel containers impart no flavor into the wine, so the wine you
make is the wine you get. They are
perfect for experimenting with exact flavors. With oak barrels it is difficult
to control the wine’s exposure to air, and this exposure can alter the flavor
of the wine dramatically. Steel barrels allow much more control over flavors.
Here is another factor: the companies with which I worked
had steel containers that ranged in size from 1,000 gallons to 600,000 gallons.
Higher quality wines, as you might imagine, used smaller containers so they
could be treated more gently. I imagine that a 1,000 gallon oak barrel would
require a pretty big tree to make!
Finally, the use of oak barrels is diminishing. Steel is quickly
becoming the most popular container for aging wine and, in fact, most (meaning
more than fifty percent) of wine is aged in steel now. I can’t get accurate
statistics better than that, although I could, if not under non-disclosure
agreements, tell you of the wine makers I know that no longer use oak at all.
But wine makers are sneaky. You may find a description of
wine put out by a maker that says something like “aged using oak.” Well, that
could mean that the maker used oak staves, oak chips or oak cubes to add aromas
to wine.
Imagination and Snobbery
There is a reason I am discussing the topic of wine aromas.
This past weekend my wife and I went camping at Big Bend
Ranch State Park. I will write about that trip in my other blog “The Wet Exit,”
but we did have a wine experience I want to discuss. I brought three bottles of
wine with me: one bottle of “The Show,” which I intended to have with chili the
first night of our trip, one bottle of “Rutherford Ranch,” which I intended to
have with our filets the second night of the trip, and one bottle of “7 Deadly
Zins,” which I intended to have with a fantastic peach and apricot chicken dish
Donna had made.
Well, the first night was a bit of a disaster. “The Show”
sat outside while we tried to get our tent up and while the temperature
plummeted to about forty degrees. It was so dark Donna could not find her
cocktail ingredients so asked for some of the wine. She took one sip and said,
“I can’t drink this. Open the Rutherford Ranch.” Talk about a wine snob!
Anyway, the next night a nice young couple named Brandi and
Robert dropped by. We invited them to hang out with us by our fire and they
did, but first they went back to their tent and returned with a bottle of “Luc
Pirlet Cabernet Sauvignon Reserve” for us to take home. I had never heard of
the wine so when I returned home I researched it. I found the following four
reviews.
REVIEW 1
One of the best values France has to offer. This 100%
Cabernet Sauvignon from southern France gives you a lot of flavor for your
dollar. Fruity with blackcurrant and blackberry aromas, spices and green peppers. This could be your
everyday go-to wine from now to next May.
REVIEW 2
Don't perceive this as a near 90 point wine. Solid up front maraschino cherry fruity goodness,
but not enough concentration and layers for a big score. The color is just
about perfect dark magenta. The nose has wet earth and the barnyard in front of
cherry and strawberry. The entrance is vanilla
laced, candied strawberry and cherry. If the mid palate had more character this
would be quite the good $10 value wine, but still has no reason for shame. So
much balance the oak and tannins are intricately involved while being shy and
perfectly content to enhance. The finish starts and concludes with a metallic
tone that tends to overwhelm the fruit.
REVIEW 3
This wine is full bodied and well-balanced with aromas of blackberries and clove on the nose and notes of blackcurrants
and spices on the palette.
REVIEW 4
Milk chocolate and
dark cherries abound with ripe
tannins and integrated oak and spice flavors. The finish is pure velvet and
lingers on for quite a long time. An elegant wine with nicely balanced tannins.
Great for pot roast or grilled flank steak.
Wow! These reviewers sure have great olfactory systems. I
have to ask: who among you reading this has ever smelled a blackcurrant? I have
had the jelly, but have never seen a currant in person.
Here is a fanciful description of a blackcurrant: There are
three major characteristics of blackcurrant: firstly, its dark red color;
secondly, its sour sweet fresh taste derived from an ideal blend of organic
acids, sugars and minerals, bringing with them many nutritional and medicinal
benefits; and thirdly, the aroma components which enhance the delightful flavor
of blackcurrants.
Here is a technical description of a blackcurrant: Blackcurrant
aroma contains many volatile compounds and terpenes, ß-caryophyllene,
terpenoid, ketones, esters, ß-pinene, limonene, a-Phellandrene, etc which
exhibit synergistic effects to create the unique aroma of the berry.
Got it? No? If you have never seen or tasted a blackcurrant
there may be a good reason: until recently it was illegal to grow them in the
US. Although popular in the 19th century in America, blackcurrants were banned
in the early 20th century by the US government because their bushes can carry a
disease fatal to white pines that threatened the then booming timber industry.
The federal ban was finally lifted in 1966, but it took until 2003 for several
states, including Connecticut, New York, Oregon and Vermont, to make it legal
to grow blackcurrants in the US again. FYI blackcurrants typically don’t grow
below the Mason-Dixon line because they need long, cold winters.
So, when I read reviews like those I presented I have to
chuckle. It seems that every reviewer has to add something about the aromas
they find in the wine and my guess is that either their imaginations take over
or their snobbery does.
When I opened the bottle of wine I examined the color—it was
a nice, deep red. Then I inhaled the vapors—I got a good, earthy aroma. Then I
tasted it—it was a bit light for my liking but very smooth. I liked it.
Given the reviews above, you might wonder what the label on
the bottle says. Here it is: The Luc Pirlet Cabernet Sauvignon is dense and
spicy. It exhibits a medium to full body and it is enjoyable with grilled meat,
spicy food and BBQ.
Note that the label says nothing about fruitiness or aroma.
The wine is described as a Vin de Pays
d'Oc, which means “country wine,” and except for the “dense” portrayal, I
agree entirely with what the label description. At about $12 at HEB it is a
pretty good bargain.
Comments about nose, aroma and bouquet are, of course,
welcome.
To read about the camping trip please visit my other site.
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