What is the wine nose?

Contents

The nose

The nose is the first impression one has of a wine when tasting it. It’s the one that’s going to put us in the mouth and you’re going to whet our appetites… or put an end to our hunger.

It follows sight, which determines the wine’s color, and precedes the mouth, which reveals the wine’s aromas, texture and balance. The sense of smell is the most acute of our five senses, but the nose is the most complex part of tasting, as it requires a gradual and distant approach to the product.

The nose is identified via two channels: the direct nasal route (inspiration through the nostrils), and the retronasal route (retro-olfaction).

How to recognize a nose

The discovery of a nose takes place in two stages: the first nose, then the second nose.

The first nose is when you simply smell the wine to appreciate its general characteristics. It is at this stage that we determine whether it has a defect (oxidized, corked…). You need to inhale in large gulps and keep the wine in your nostrils for as long as possible.

Then it’s time to swirl the wine in the glass, stirring and aerating it to release new aromas. It is sometimes advisable to smell the wine in short bursts, to avoid saturating perception and encourage retro-olfaction. This second nose is supposed to tell you more about the grape variety, the region, the appellation… The longer you wait, the more the wine’s aromas will reveal themselves and multiply.

The different noses

While the human nose can recognize 10,000 scents, oenologists, notably Émile Peynaud, the father of modern oenology, have classified them into ten categories: animal, balsamic, woody, chemical, ethereal, spicy, empyreumatic, floral, fruity and vegetal.

The categories contain the following flavours: