Wine tasting with your nose: What can I smell in wine?

I am often asked about the basics of wine tasting. A particular focus, of course, is on the nose. I hear questions like "How do I properly smell my wine?" or "What can I do wrong when smelling?" Here, I have summarized the basics of olfactory wine tasting for you.

What is the purpose of smell?

The human nose is a very sensitive organ and is often underestimated. For example, smell is a reliable early warning system for various dangers, such as smoke development, dangerous fumes, or spoiled food.

On the other hand, smells often contribute significantly to our well-being, such as freshly laundered clothes, a bouquet of flowers, or a steak on the grill. It's almost logical that the sense of smell also plays an important role in wine tasting.

Like visuals, "the nose" can provide crucial clues about the grape variety, country, aging, and age of the wine.

How can I smell more in wine?

It's advisable to smell the glass briefly and more often, allowing fresh air to reach the nose in between. Swirl the glass lightly to stir up aromatic compounds. And most importantly: take your time, because different aromatic compounds are released at different temperatures.

A lesser-known fact is that we rarely smell equally well with both nostrils. Just as we are left- or right-handed, we have a dominant nostril with which we smell 70% of the time during the day. To relieve the dominant nostril, the weaker nostril takes over from time to time. You will notice it during wine tasting - you smell better with one nostril than with the other. It helps to bring the dominant nostril further into the glass by tilting your head.

A small experiment

Did you know that you taste more with your nose than with your mouth? With your tongue, you taste sweet, sour, salty, etc. Only in combination with the nose and throat do millions of nuances emerge. You can test this: hold your nose with two fingers and take a sip of wine. Distribute the wine well in your mouth - keep your nose pinched. What do you taste? Nothing! Now take your fingers off your nose and you'll immediately notice how the taste comes through. This phenomenon is called retronasal perception.

Woman smelling white wine

What aromas can you smell?

There are almost infinitely many different aromas in wine. Recognizing and naming them requires a lot of practice. When evaluating smell, there is initially no right or wrong - only an individual perception. The evaluation of smells has a lot to do with personal experiences and memories, such as the smell of grandma's fruit cake. Of course, there are also smells that have no place in a wine (sulfur, mold, cork, etc.). We will cover such wine faults in other posts.