Sensory Evaluation of Wine

The highlight of last week was my introduction to sensory evaluation (aromas/flavors) of wine. Appraising a wine's aroma is the most important part of sensory evaluation - I can't (yet!) but an experienced winemaker or judge can tell a lot about wine just by smelling it. Apparently, it's not all fun and games for the winemakers - a lot of mistakes can happen during handling and fermentation that can result in some pretty bad 'defects' or 'undesirable' (putting it mildly!) attributes. I really had no idea how many aromas, both pleasant and unpleasant, exist in wine, and we experienced both, in actual wine samples and with the aid of aroma "kits" - tiny bottles of sample smells. On the upleasant side, "cork", "sulphur" (rotten eggs) and "brett" (a barnyard character like horse sweat) were the worst; others were garlic, cabbage, mold, tar, and nail polish remover! These are caused by a variety of bacteria and spoilage yeasts. Luckily for winemakers, there are lots of additives and chemicals that can correct or mask these problems, but the key to avoiding them in the first place is to begin with good, ripe fruit, treated well and fermented in a clean environment. The good smells included fruit like apple, pear, pineapple, prune, melon, lemon, orange, cherry, peach, blackberry and strawberry, honey, toast, butter, caramel, hazelnut, coffee, cinammon and chocolate. There are many more. Our teacher said the only way to learn and develop the ability to "describe" wine (balanced, cloying, crisp, earthy, herbaceous, oaky, spicy, jammy, woody) is to taste, taste, taste.....fortunately, that's not an arduous task!!