Common Scents

 This week's Aromatics class at SFWC was a lot of fun to prepare for and to experience. We gathered a wide variety of "natural" scents - fruits, flowers, spices, vegetables, etc.- to compliment the vials in a Le Nez Du Vin aroma kit, a common tool used by people in the wine industry to train their noses and palates. Since taste is very heavily linked to smell, aromas and flavors are often somewhat consistent. Students went around to different stations and smelled the scents, helping to creating a palate memory before tasting the wines. It is always good to exercise your nose like this, and for beginners especially it is a really useful exercise. I was excited to smell things like juniper berries and currants, scents that I know are way back in my palate memory but have been forgotten.

 After everyone had smelled everything, they sat down and went through the tasting blind, identifying aromas in the wines and then checking those identifications against the actual scents that we had gathered. It was very interactive, and everyone agreed that smelling the scents first was really helpful in identifying the scents in the glass. The wines we chose were aromatic expressions of the grape and origin: Australian Riesling, New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc, Alsatian Gewurz, Oregon Pinot Noir, Rhone Syrah, and  red Bordeaux blend.

Next week: Old World vs. New World wines!