Class: Le Nez du Vin Part I

My local community college offers workshops in their “Cooking & Wine School,” in which I just took the first off a two series class titled “Le Nez du Vin”: The Nose of Wine. It is a class designed to help improve one’s ability to identify smells in wine.

They started us off talking about how sight affects our perception of wine, as it gives the first impression based on color and haze. For instance, age changes the color of the wine, which we then perceive and it sets up expectations on our part. They also gave a 5 minute talk regarding the science of seeing.

From there, they gave us a grape wine aroma wheel designed for Washington State wines. It was a copy of what was originally a small flip book, where the wheel was limited just to smells common to this state, and then each page talked about a specific wine style. It gave a brief description, an ideal food pairing, indicated the usual flavor characteristics, and then indicated where they were on the wine wheel.

They then took us into another room where there were 17 foil covered jars with lids. Each jar contained either a mashed up food in it covered with tissue paper so you couldn’t see it, or cotton balls dipped in a liquid. We were to smell these jars and identify what they were, such as honey, pineapple, orange, apple, hazelnut, vanilla, etc. These smells were characteristics of white wines. They had briefly flashed a list of what the options where, so I got 14/17 correct, messing up three of the citrus and mixing up pear and apple. However, if I hadn’t seen the list, I’m not sure I would have gotten that many. They also included four “flaws” for us to smell – acetone (nail polish remover), vinegar, pickle juice, and sulfites.

They explained that if you google for “Le Nez du Vin,” you would find a kit of 12, 14, or 54 vials representing wine smells. These kits cost between $120-500, so this class’s “kitchen approach” method of jars was much cheaper, though not as long lasting since the items would parish.

They brought us back to other room and talked a little bit about smell. They said that the average person can smell 20,000 smells, and wine typically has 200 or more (cider has about 163 aromas determined by Long Aston Research Station in 1975). In order to smell something, the “smell” has to be able to evaporate, and it has to be able to dissolve in oil. This is part of the reason wine drinkers swirl their wine – it increases the ability to evaporate and therefore be smelled. Again, they talked a little bit about the science regarding how we smell.

We then went and tasted seven known white wines and just tried to identify smells in them. There were no right or wrong answers, just what you perceive. Unfortunately, our culture does not really encourage the development of a vocabulary for smell, so sometimes it would be frustrating that I might know a smell but would be unable to give it a name.

Next week’s class will talk about red wines.

How to Taste Cider

How do you evaluate the cider you are drinking?

While reading Ben Watson’s Cider: Hard and Sweet: History, Traditions & Making Your Own, 2^nd Edition and Annie Proulx and Lew Nichol’s Cider: Making, Using & Enjoying Sweet & Hard Cider on how to host a cider tasting, the books gave excellent advice on how to evaluate the ciders.

A cider evaluation can be broken down into three parts – appearance, aroma, and taste. Ben Watson remarked, “Each of these individual components contributes to the overall quality and drinkability of the cider, and each should be taken into account when you evaluate it.”

When looking at a cider in a glass, you want to take the following notes:

• Is it a still cider or is it carbonated?
• If it is carbonated, is it a natural carbonation or a forced carbonation? Ben Watson describes the difference between the two as, “Naturally sparkling cider will foam up as it hits the bottom of the glass, and the bubbles that swirl up to the surface are smaller and longer-lasting than those in an artificially carbonated cider.”
• What color is it? Example of color descriptions include pale straw, golden yellow, salmon, apricot, or amber. Ciders that have a green, gray, or orange-red tint may not be drinkable, as the color would be evidence to oxidation or cider sickness.
• Is it hazy or clear? Words to use include brilliant, clear, slightly hazy, hazy or cloudy.

For the evaluating the aroma, Ben Watson explained, “A hard cider’s aroma or bouquet usually comes from the percentage of fragrant apple varieties that were used in the original cider blend… Yeasts, both natural and cultured, plus other fruits, spices or adjuncts… can also contribute to the complex aroma of a good cider. To evaluate the aroma, put your nose near the top of the glass and take a good whiff; the cider’s bouquet should be a preview of the flavor. If it smells bad or is excessively sharp or vinegary, don’t even bother tasting the cider” (page 103).

Last comes tasting the cider, in which the evaluation can be broken into feel in the mouth and how it tastes on the tongue. Take some of the cider in your mouth and do or note the following:

• “Chew” on the cider a bit or roll it around in your mouth to get a feeling for the body. Full bodied ciders will feel heaver and richer, and thinner, watery ciders will have little sensation. There is no right or wrong to this, just an observation. However, watery ciders will not be as flavorful.
• Is it a sweet or dry cider?
• Is there a nice balance between sugar, acid, tannins, and alcohol? That is to say, are all the elements balanced in the tasting, or is there an element that over powers the other elements? For example, if you pucker, it may have too much tannin.
• Is the alcohol content strong or weak?
• After you swallow, does the aroma linger on?
• Please do not fault a cider because it does not taste like apples, as grape wines do not taste like grapes.
• Other descriptors?

Most importantly about tasting ciders is, “Do you like it?”Remember, it doesn’t matter how you scored a cider in relationship to others, but that you liked the cider, as your tastes will be different from the next person’s.