You have a nose and so do we. Some have more nose than others: Cyrano (permanently, above) and Pinocchio (episodically, not shown) come to mind. Wine also has a nose — at least that’s how we often refer to the aromatic profile it presents to us. Both kinds of noses prove to be frightfully complicated things once you begin to investigate.
A number of recent books endeavor to explain just how one or the other goes about its business. In I Taste Red, author and wine blogger Jamie Goode has a go at explaining both. A former science journalist with a PhD in plant biology, Goode may be uniquely suited to the task. He’s readable, but doesn’t soft-peddle the technical bits. One of the things I learned from his latest book is that wine is now thought to have at least three categories of chemical components that make it smell (and taste) as it does.
The first is a set of compounds common to all wine, which together produce a kind of Generic Wine Aroma. Arrestingly, only one of these is present in grapes – the remainder being generated by the activity yeasts in fermentation (let’s hear it for the wee, industrious creatures). A second category is comprised of naturally-occurring chemicals that make a collective contribution, but which exist in such minute concentrations as to be individually unparsable. A third group, the headliners, consists of the aptly named impact compounds, responsible for the obvious (often flamboyant) aromas we have come to associate with wine from particular varietals.
Impact compounds are beloved of professional tasters and amateurs alike, since they permit us, having snuffed up a snootful, to opine on the composition and provenance of what’s in the glass. An abundance of monoterpenes with their seductive floral-spice notes signal Muscat. Methoxypyrazines impress Cabernet Franc with its idiopathic green herb/bell pepper stamp. Your redolent-of-fresh-squeezed-grapefruit-juice Sauvignon Blanc owes its trademark scents to healthy doses of polyfunctional thiols.
It’s marvelous that science is able to explain all this. But there’s a downside (isn’t there always?) Not content to let terpenes be terpenes, contemporary winemakers are choosing to boost these naturally-occurring aromatic flourishes by planting clones of vines that exhibit higher amounts of impact compounds, by employing cultured yeasts that amplify their effects and by fermenting at very low temperatures – a technique aimed at capturing every last volatile scent molecule for the bottle. The result may be cartoonishly exaggerated scent profiles, even when the base varietal itself (like Chardonnay or Chenin Blanc) isn’t particularly gifted in the aromatics department.
At this point, it’s tempting to posit what we might call the Pinocchio Rule: The less honest the wine, the bigger the nose. Or perhaps its corollary: The bigger the nose, the less honest the wine. But one needn’t go quite so far. Let’s just say that in the search for more natural and well-proportioned wine, the nose not only knows, it tells.
–Stephen Meuse
Taste, talk and learn about wine this week in the FKC wine corner . . .
THURSDAY, MAY 9 3-6 PM – POLYFUNCTIONAL IN TUSCANY
2017 Montenidoli, Vernaccia di San Gimignano “Tradizionale, “$21.95
2018 Montenidoli, Toscana Canaiuolo Rosato $19.95
2013 Il Civettaio, Maremma Toscana “Il Civettaio’” $21.95
FRIDAY, May10 3-6 PM – HEADLINERS
2016 Saint Jean de Bébian, Coteaux du Languedoc “La Chapelle de Bébian” Blanc, $26.95
2016 Domaine des Huards “Envol” Cheverny, $22.92016
Vittorio Bera e Figli, Barbera d’Asti “Ronco Malo,” $28.95