What if I told you that you can become a better wine taster without ever taking a sip? Without even using your mouth? Not only is it possible, I highly suggest you do it. Do what exactly? Smell everything! EVERYTHING. Read on to learn how to be a better wine taster by understanding the links between smell and memory and emotion.
We’ve been training our brains to be wine tasters since before we were born. Don’t believe me? It’s science. Our sense of smell begins developing in utero. The part of our brain that handles smell is in the limbic system, our mammalian brain. This system also handles memory and emotion (more on those further down). Smell is essential to our survival as a species. Before you eat an unfamiliar food, instinctually what do you do? You smell it. If it smells bad or off, you won’t eat it. If smell didn’t exist, we’d be making ourselves sick all over the place.
How we smell wine
We have two ways to trigger our smell box, or olfaction. One is orthonasal- up our nose or sniffing. The other is retronasal- smelling from behind our nose where it connects with our mouth. As we are eating, molecules sneak up to the back side of our smell box. So essentially, what we think of as tasting flavors is actually smelling them. Eighty percent of what we taste is what we smell. That’s why when you have a cold, food tastes bland or like nothing at all.
I wasn’t a huge believer in retronasal smelling until I moved to Crete and found out I’m allergic to olive trees. Tragic, I know. Unfortunately for me, olive trees bloom in early spring when all the wine expos and wine events take place. My nose was completely plugged. I couldn’t smell the wines, at all. What I did is kind of gross, but it worked. After every wine I tasted, I would blow my nose forcing air up the back of my nose to trigger my retronasal smell box. Boom, all the smells. Try it, but maybe not in public.
What does this have to do with wine tasting?
I’m not just saying this because I have a big ole nose, but smell is by far the most important part of wine tasting. Before ever bringing the glass to your lips, it is crucial to smell it. If you do not take the time to swirl a wine to release the smells, and then sniff the wine in your glass several times you are missing out on most of the taste. If you’re drinking a 20 buck bottle or wine and you don’t smell it, you just threw 16 bucks in the trash.
Smell and Memory
It’s not just wine you should be smelling. Smell every single scented thing you come across from flowers to fruit to pastries to gasoline! Why? Because smell is linked to memory. To be a better wine taster, you need to have a rich database of smells to pull from. If you’ve never smelled gardenias or pomegranates, you cannot find those smells in a wine. They don’t exist in your memory banks. Now, you may never smell carrots in a wine but at least the scent will be in your memory files if you ever do, so smell those, too. Even bad smells like wet cardboard or nail polish can help you identify wine faults.
Visit a farmer’s market where fruit tends to be more ripe, and smell every single fruit you come across. Pop into a candle shop and stick your nose in everything. Smell herbs and spices as you’re cooking. And most importantly, commit them to memory. Physically pick up the fruit, smell it, and say to yourself “this is a green apple” “this is what green apple smells like”. Smell fruits in all their forms; underripe, ripe, baked, candied, dried. Different aromas emerge in every state of a fruit.
Smell and Emotion
Our memories are full of emotions. Have you ever walked past a bakery and the smell of freshly baked bread transports you to your grandmother’s kitchen? Your ex’s cologne/perfume put butterflies in your stomach? Or does a specific flower remind you of specific time and place? For me, it’s jasmine. Every time I smell jasmine I am 9 years old again. The summer of 1993 was my first visit to Crete. The taxi door opened next to a giant jasmine bush in front of the house my father was born. I’d never smelled anything so potent and wonderful. That summer was one of the best summers of my childhood and the scent of jasmine will always flood my mind with those memories. It is no wonder that very floral white wines are my favorite.
If you love Thanksgiving, a wine that smells of cranberries, pumpkin spice, and apple pie will be a wine you instantly love. Now, if the holidays are a difficult time of year for you, then a wine that smells like apple pie and sugar plums won’t be something you enjoy. It’s not the wine’s fault, it’s the subconscious emotional connection you’ve made with those smells. Think about the wines you love and the wines you don’t like. I bet there’s some emotional correlation between them.
Take Your Wine Tasting Skills a Step Further
To really seal the deal on being a better wine taster, take notes and keep track of the wines you drink. I bet you see patterns emerge. Do all the wines you love have a particular smell? Are you apprehensive to certain flavors in wine? By noting these particular similarities and difference you and uncover the wines you like and communicate the wines you don’t. Download your free wine tasting sheet here.
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