TERMINOLOGY for Communication and Memory

Describing specific smells and flavors of wine is not important to the average wine lover; most decide that a wine simply tastes good or not. Critics and judges, however, need to learn and apply standards of terminology. Wine lovers can enhance their tasting experience by learning these terms in order to communicate better with their fellow tasters, their wine merchant, and, perhaps most importantly, to develop a memory of their likes and dislikes.

Many of the smells and flavors in wine are described in terms of other fruits. Until her retirement in 2003, from the University of California at Davis, Dr. Ann Noble led wine research on smells and flavors. She began to develop her theories on aromas specifically recognizable in wine in the 1980s and her colleagues continue this research today. Dr. Noble headed a project to develop an inexpensive and easy tool to aid in learning wine flavor terminology.

The Aroma Wheel is a kind of pie-chart that lists, categorizes and groups hundreds of smells and odors that may be present specifically in wines. Each of these specific aromas is grouped into one of nine major general categories: floral, fruity, vegetative, nutty, woody, caramelized, earthy, spicy, or chemical.

Dr. Noble’s Aroma Wheel can be used to train your “nose and brain to connect and quickly link terms with odors…using materials available from the grocery store.” You may find many different wines to fill up your wooden wine cooler.

The actual cost of producing a great wine is surprisingly small – $15 a bottle. Of course, if a winery has a fancy facility, in order to support its overhead, the cost of the wine must be greater than the cost of creating what’s actually in the bottle.

So, try some of those “cheap” wines priced from $5 to $10 – or even lower – you will get a pleasant surprise. We tried a Chilean blend of Merlot and Malbec offered at Trader Joe’s for $4 and got a “big” surprise! The wine comes from Panilonco Winery in the Colchagua Valley (2010) . We bought a couple of cases, because we have a very attractive  credenza-style wine cabinet in which to store it.

The Glass Wine Bottle

The glass wine bottle is the classic wine container. It’s strong, recyclable and helps to protect the wine from sudden changes in temperature. Glass bottles are heavy and can be colored to help protect wines from harmful UV rays and light.

The Plastic Wine Bottle

The plastic wine bottle is expensive, does not protect wine from light and temperature, and probably will end up in a dump, living forever.

The Wine Can

Cans are appealing because they offer considerable protection to the wine, blocking light as well as oxygen. Cans can be made from post-consumer waste and are generally recycled at a high rate. They are expensive, because they are lined with plastic and produced in relatively small batches, and they conduct heat.

The Wine Bag

Some producers have ceased packaging wine in boxes and are now producing pouches of wine. Like cans, these pouches are good for blocking out light and do a very good job preventing oxygen from interacting with the wine, but offer minimal protection against temperature fluctuations.

The Bag in Box

The bag in box is generally similar to the simple bag. There are some additional costs involved, but the main difference between the wine bag and bag in box is the volume of wine stored.

With the increase of wine found in a typical bag in box, the issue of rapid temperature swings is reduced. Also, the generally smaller size of the bag in relation to the volume of wine means less trash. The box of course can be recycled. The Bag in Box wine lasts for weeks after opening. However, the life of the wine before opening might only stretch out to a year or two, making this a poor choice for long-term storage.

Based on the above, glass wine bottles will be around for a long time to come and, of course, fit well on the shelves of your wooden wine cooler.

Cheese seems to be the first choice for hors d’oeuvres at every dinner party, and, of course, wine is the logical choice to pair with the cheeses you serve. There are extraordinary combinations of specific cheese and wine.

Have your guests experiment by tasting a bite of cheese, then taking a sip of wine. Here are a few choices to experience:

Brie (triple cream) – pair with a buttery Chardonnay. The wine really wraps around the subtle flavors of the cheese.

Goat cheese – pair with a crisp Sauvignon Blanc. The herbal flavors of the wine blend with the zippy flavor of the cheese.

Cheddar – pair with a dry Cabernet Sauvignon. The tannins in the wine make the cheese smoother and richer.

Blue cheese – pair with Port. The high alcohol content and sweetness of the Port blend with the strong flavors in the cheese.

When you have a wooden wine cabinet, it’s easy to have all these wines – and many more – at your fingertips.

Enjoy!

This article (“Sensory User’s Manual -  using chemistry, physiology, physics and psychology to develop a wine palate”) which we found at http://www.winepros.org/wine101/sensory_guide.htm on the topic of wine tasting is so well written and the topic so well developed that we are including it here as written.  It is a bit long but, we think, is worth the time to read. This article was developed by Jim LaMar for: Professional Friends of Wine; http://www.winepros.org/wine101/sensory_guide.htm.

One caution.  It is somewhat difficult reading. However, if you really want to know the subject give it a try. Let us know what you think.

Introduction

Wine tasting can be an occasional pleasant diversion or a time-and-resource-consuming passion. It can be conducted casually or formally. No matter what level of orientation or dedication is involved, some basic background knowledge and a logical approach can greatly increase individual enjoyment. Most American wine drinkers cheat themselves by not knowing how to taste; many talk the talk but fail to walk the walk, so a lot of ordinary-tasting wines gets sold at extraordinary prices.

Wine tasting is actually a complex proposition involving much more than simply sipping some fermented grape juice. There are many variable factors that affect an individual’s perception of flavor in wine. There are chemical, physical, mechanical, physiological, and psychological variables.

The type and quality of the wine itself is only one aspect of tasting. Others are the and shape of the wine glass… the individual’s impartial ability to smell and taste, as well as his individual flavor preferences… the temperature of not only the beverage itself, but also the ambient temperature and humidity of the tasting site… mental condition, how hungry, tired, and attentive the taster is can also affect relative judgment, as well as any preconceived notions and other psychological factors.

The Four Elements of Flavor
To understand these variables, let’s first look at the phenomenon of taste from a physiological standpoint. Flavor, although it may have slightly differing meanings, depending upon who is using the term, always refers to food. A food chemist may use “flavor” only to refer to aroma, while a chef is likely to include taste, texture, temperature, appearance, and arrangement in his context. The International Organization for Standardization defines flavor as:

Complex combination of the olfactory, gustatory and trigeminal sensations perceived during tasting. The flavour may be influenced by tactile, thermal, painful and/or chemesthetic effects.

While the senses of smell and taste are truly most important, flavor is not an experience limited to these, but a combination of experiences from the senses of smell, taste, touch, and, less obviously, sight.

• One – Smell: Acute, Ancient and Fragile
• Two – Taste: Categorization and Individual Sensitivity
• Three – Feeling: Texture, Body, Tannin, Alcohol and Temperature
• Four – Seeing: Clues Only; Don’t be Fooled

This article is divided into six parts, each in a separate Post. After the discussion of the senses, the article continues with a discussion of how to put it all together; the Methodology, Terminology and a Summary.

Remember, to keep a variety of wines in your wooden wine cabinet.

The smell of the wine is the primary source of the pleasure it can bring. The smells in wine are comprised of Volatile Organic Compounds. Some VOCs are present in such minute concentrations and are so volatile that they may be exhausted and disappear completely with only a few seconds of aeration. So, don’t aerate the wine by any means so that you don’t miss the subtleties of the wine.

Before you argue against this point, try an experiment (with no deviation or prejudice). It requires two bottles of the same wine, preferably from the same case, two identical decanters, masking tape, a pen, and an assistant (although this exercise is more instructive and fun with additional tasters). The morning of your tasting, open and decant one bottle. Do not open the other bottle. Out of sight, the assistant uses the pen and masking tape to mark each bottle and its corresponding decanter (with a random mark, such as X and O) to keep track. Several hours later, but immediately before tasting and out of sight of the taster(s), he decants the second bottle. The wines are then immediately poured “blind” for the tasters to decide which bottle (decanter) smells and tastes best. Most taster prefer the just-opened bottle most of the time. Furthermore, these results will be consistent, whether using young or aged wines, whether white or red, and whether the tasters are experienced or not.

If you are unwilling to forgo the “breathing” ritual and you truly place great value in allowing your wines to aerate, simply pulling corks won’t do it. Decant the wine, regardless of an absence of sediment. However, you must keep in mind that the older the bottle of wine, the more brief the aroma window, so gather your friends around to appreciate the fragrances as you decant to remove any sediment and then pour that wine at once!

A wine cabinet is the best way to keep your wines in the correct environment and with a wide selection you can always have a choice of wines to drink tonight without going to the store.

Chateau LaTour 1933

Wow! The belief that wines do get better with age is based in old Roman and Greek texts and in the New Testament where Luke says “No man…, having drunk old wine, straightaway desireth new; for he saith, The old is better.”

Wines change with age, but only the very few are even capable of “improving”. And, of course, the notion of improvement is largely in the mind of the taster. Besides the personal preference for the smell of a wine, three factors influence whether you will enjoy a wine more as it ages.

One, it must have a chemistry that is capable of improvement.

Second, the storage conditions must be constant and correct: temperate, humid, dark and solid (minimal vibration).

Third, an investment of time and capital is needed to monitor the aging progress, so as to know when the wine is ready, has reached its peak, and begun to decline.

So, wine is more like vegetables than other alcoholic-based beverages. They change over time and you can enjoy them in various states of maturity.

Even among the few table wines that are able to improve with age and stored in ideal conditions, maybe 20% of them will make it to twenty years before the aromas and flavors begin to deteriorate. Of course there are exceptions, but our topic of discussion is the general perception. Most people who taste an “aged” wine for the first time are disappointed, because what they are usually getting is simply an “old” wine that most probably has been not properly stored.

So, our advice to most wine lovers is to buy your wines to be drunk over the next year.

Or, you can get more storage time for your wines by keeping them in a wooden wine cabinet where the temperature, humidity and light is well controlled and the vibration is kept to a minimum.

Cavavin Majestika 099 Bottle Wine Cellar

Australia represents about one-quarter of China’s wine imports, with brands like Treasury Wine Estates’ Penfolds and Pernod Ricard’s Jacob’s Creek. “Jacob’s Creek is growing by more than 23% annually. Italy, Spain and Chile also have sizeable market share and are capitalizing on China’s broadening consumer interest in wine.

We think the Chinese would do well by storing all that foreign wine in a customized wooden wine cabinet.

2010 Molly Decker Velvet Glove Shiraz - a wine that will be remembered for a long time

In Australia 462 cases of 2010 Molly Dooker Velvet Glove shiraz – at about $200 US a bottle – fell more than 20′ to the ground as it was being loaded for export from Adelaide to the US. It cost the company more than a third of his annual production.

If only I could have had a few cases of this wine, I would have stored it in my wooden wine cooler.