Wine Aroma & Tastes
Terms
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- Sandalwood
- Very specific (and rare) floral-aromatic spice describing an occasional red wine. (I've found it in Spanish and Greek reds.)
- Brown sugar
- Not sweetness but a pleasant caramel aroma.
- Wildflowers
- Generalized term for light, delicate flowers in a wine's aroma, one that I almost always greet with pleasure.
- Bouquet, bottle bouquet
- As a technical term, the smells that develop with age in the wine bottle, as opposed to "aroma," the smells associated with the fruit. I have little use for distinctions this narrow and try to avoid using them in my wine notes.
- Herbal, herbaceous
- General term (aka"vegetal," below) for wines with "green," "grassy" or "haylike" aromas.
- Garrigues
- The hillsides of Languedoc and Provence are covered with low, aromatic herbs like lavender, and it's traditional among the wine makers of those regions to report these herbal aromas in their wines. It's a useful term, but I try never to use it in a tastin
- Cedar
- Check an old-fashioned cedar chest to sample this herbaceous aroma, which is often found in Bordeaux and California Cabernet.
- Black fruit
- A catchall term for mixed black-cherry, blackberry, plum and similar fruit aromas, commonplace in many good red wines.
- Spearmint
- Specific aroma description, may be associated with
- Earthy
- Generic term for a range of aromas and flavors associated with organic qualities like "barnyard," "forest floor," "merde" and "tree bark." May be associated with brettanomyces but can also result from oak aging or the nature of specific grapes. Mourvedre
- Clean
- Overall description for a wine with no unpleasant or "off" aromas or tastes.
- Brett, brettanomyces
- A wild yeast that occasionally afflicts wines, particularly those made under less-than-sterile conditions in older or careless wineries. Controversial; some wine lovers detest the "organic," "barnyard," "leather," "metallic" or even "fecal" aroma that it
- Corked, corky
- Always a flaw: Wine afflicted by an undetectable cork fungus (2,4,6-TCA) that imparts an unpleasant musty, damp-cardboard flavor that obliterates all other aromas and flavors in the wine. (Nuance: I've been reminded, correctly, that mild corkiness may dim
- Linden
- A European tree with a strongly aromatic quality that's startlingly reminiscent of Band-Aids. Sorry there's no more felicitous comparison, but "Band-Aid" describes it exactly.
- Apple
- Pleasant apple-fruit aroma, particularly characteristic of Chardonnays made without excessive oak.
- Floral, Flowery
- General term for a wine with aromas more reminiscent of flowers than fruit. May be very pleasant, especially in white wines.
- Boxwood
- Aromatic shrub reminiscent of cat urine (really!) and thus a euphemism for the more pungent "cat spray" or "cat pee" descriptor found in some Sauvignon Blancs.
- Evolution
- The development of complex and desirable aromas and flavors (aka "bouquet" above) in ageworthy wine cellared under appropriate temperature conditions.
- Caramel
- As with burnt-sugar above, a sweet, sugary aroma, not unpleasant, but I often wonder if it hints that the wine was chaptalized (sugar added to increase the alcoholic level in wine made with less than fully ripened fruit); more likely, however, it speaks o
- Fragrant
- General term for a wine with a full, accessible aroma.
- Grapey
- Surprisingly, since wine is made from grapes, this is not necessarily a positive term. It implies a strong-flavored, one-dimensional wine without the subtlety or character that shows as complex aroma and flavor.
- Medicinal
- Herbal aromatics, not necessarily unpleasant, may evoke alcohol or witch hazel .
- Witch hazel
- An aromatic medicinal scent, not unpleasant, reminiscent of vermouth.
- Chestnut
- Specific, descriptive aroma and flavor description, classic in Meursault but often present in other White Burgundies and more rarely in Chardonnays from other regions.
- Vinous
- Another of those "I don't know what to say" terms implying an undifferentiated, simple "wine" aroma without any elements that really stand out for description.
- Strawberry
- Specific fruit aroma descriptor, commonplace in Beaujolais.
- Cheesy
- Organic, ripe natural cheese aromas, almost always a flaw, typically indicating filthy wine making and an unwanted secondary fermentation in the bottle.
- Oak, oaky
- Showing substantial influence of the oak barrels in which the wine was aged. This may manifest itself in many forms depending on the wine, the source of the oak, whether the barrels were "toasted" (charred) and whether they are large or small, new or old.
- Dominant
- The aroma or flavor in question outweighs everything else in the wine. Not usually a favorable description; inimical to "balance."
- Green olive
- Specific vegetal aroma, often noted in Cabernet Sauvignon. May, surprisingly, be closely chemically related to the typical "blackcurrant" or "cassis" of Cabernet.
- Honey
- Specific flavor and aroma description, characteristic of botrytis but may also appear as a flavor nuance in dry white wines.
- "Pine
- A specific aromatic description that I find most often married with fresh apples in tasty young German Rieslings.
- Tobacco, tobacco-leaf
- Specific vegetal aroma quite common in some Bordeaux and California Cabernet.
- "Cassis
- French blackcurrant liqueur, classic description for the aroma of red Bordeaux.
- Threshold
- Technical term for a barely off-dry wine with just sufficient sweetness to be at or near the "threshold of perception" for the average taster. Many California Chardonnays, especially at the low end, are made in this style to appeal to the American public'
- Eucalyptus
- Very aromatic quality, akin to mint, classic in some Napa Cabernets, yielding endless discussion as to whether the presence of eucalyptus trees alongside Napa's Martha's Vineyard (for example) directly affects the wine.
- Banana
- Specific aroma descriptor, often found in Beaujolais, and specifically in the popular wines made by Georges Duboeuf; it's said to be characteristic of his proprietary yeast strain.
- Nose
- Wine taster's term for the overall smell of a wine, its aroma and bouquet.
- Heady
- Wine with an exceptionally "forward" or "fragrant" aroma (aka both)
- Consistent
- As I use it, refers to a wine's aroma, taste and aftertaste all being appropriate to each other.
- Perfumed
- Aroma description, usually reflects a heavy floral quality that may be out of balance.
- Foxy
- Strong "grape jelly" aroma and flavor characteristic of native American grapes like Concord and sometimes found in more subtle form in red French-hybrid grapes. Probably coined by early settlers in the Americas who called the native grapes fox grapes by a
- Carbonic maceration
- The Beaujolais process, in which whole grapes are fermented without crushing. Creates a very fruity wine with characteristic aromas of bananas, strawberries and cotton candy and often a salad-dressing whiff of vinegar within palatable limits.
- Grassy
- Walk through your lawn after cutting the grass, and you'll never mistake this aroma, often found in Sauvignon Blanc.
- Figs
- As with "dates," an aroma reminiscent of the fruit. May show in oaky Chardonnays or Sauvignon Blancs.
- Organic
- Broad, general term for "earthy," "forest floor," "cheesy," "leather," "barnyard" and related aromas and flavors.
- Melon, muskmelon, musky melon
- As with "cantaloupe," a musky, melon aroma that's found in many whites -- Pinots Blanc, Gris and Grigio, also Muscadet and sometimes Riesling.