Where do all those nifty flavors come from in wine?

I get a lot of emails asking questions about wine. Some of the questions are better than others. In this case the question was not only a good one, but one I suspect many people have wondered about.

"My wife and I have a question about wine and how Reds get all of their flavors of fruit, chocolate, tobacco, vanilla, etc. I understand that some of the flavoring comes from the barrel and the earth, but how about all the unique flavors that are used today? We are only becoming regular wine drinkers and someday would like to understand what we are consuming."

My answer is, as usual, rather long and detailed, but important enough that I wanted to share it with everyone.

Wine is made from grapes, and it is sometimes aged in wooden (usually oak) barrels. Nothing else is added (sugar and acid can be added in some parts of the world, but not usually to quality wines).

All of the flavors you taste come either from these sources, or from the fermentation process itself.

Part of the problem in talking about wine are these very subtle flavors you mention. Not only are they subtle, but they are highly subjective. What may taste like chocolate and tobacco to you, may just as easily taste like leather and tar to someone else. It is for this reason that I teach in my courses and in my book to acknowledge these flavors to yourself, but to talk more about the objective balance of the wine. Is it tart? Is it rough? These are much more universal sensations, and ultimately mean more about the quality of the wine.

I suspect all of the flowery language (what I call the fruit basket syndrome) was started by wine writers that get paid by the word.

All of that aside, some things, like vanilla, butter, and even leather, have very distinct chemicals that are responsible for their being found in wine.

Vanilla (vanillin is more exact) comes from the vanillic acid found in oak (this is where artificial vanilla flavor comes from).

Buttery notes in wine are due to the presence of diacetyl (the chemical added to vegetable oil to make margarine taste like butter) which is a byproduct of a secondary fermentation called malo-lactic fermentation (which is often induced in wines to soften the acidic taste).

Leather is one of my favorite aroma/tastes to talk about. Raw hide has no smell. Pick up a doggy chew toy and this is easy to determine for yourself. Leather is "tanned" in order to preserve it. The tanning agent is "tannin" itself, one of the major components of red wine (along with fruit, and acidity). When you smell or taste leather in wine, it is due to the tannin.

Other common aroma/flavors, such as caramel, and certainly almost all the "off" odors, also come from chemicals that are a by product of the wine making process.

The fruit flavors, and other subjective elements of the wine have more to do with the fact that the brain likes to find patterns, and will impose a pattern when none is found, than due to any actual components found in wine. Smell is one of the strongest triggers of memory, so when you smell wine, your mind is busy trying to remember what all those smells are.

Different grape varieties tend towards one or more of these subjective aromas. For example most Pinot Noirs have a sense of cherry about them. Cabernet Sauvignon can smell of currants, and Merlot can have a green bell pepper character. Wine making, the region where the grapes are grown, and how the wine was handled will all have an effect on the final product, and a Cab from one producer may not have any resemblance to a Cab from another producer.

My advice is to enjoy the smells and tastes without worrying too much if you "get them right," at least until such time you decide you want to learn to "read" a wine. This skill encompasses not only knowing what subtle aromas to look for, but what clues color and aspects of the wine can tell you about how it is made and how it stacks up against other wines of similar provenance.

When you do want to learn how to read a wine, come take my course. I am one of the few in the world that specialize in teaching this skill, even though I consider it to be more of a parlor trick than a necessary part of a wine education.

Wine tasting like a pro - for fun

Wine Classic in Aspen is a busy time. The streets and restaurants are full of weary tasters, who have given their all to explore the thousands of wines that are being poured. No question that Wine Classic is a lot of fun, and a great place to see and be seen; but, is it a good place to taste wine?

Huge tents, filled with many hundreds of people, pitched over a grassy park. Food booths grilling away, people and their associated odors, not exactly what I look for in an ideal tasting environment. So what do I prefer?

Clean and bright are the keys. Neutral odors, and few distractions. A bright white surface to compare the color of wine against (tilt your glass and look through the wine at the white background). This is what I provide for my school, what I like to see in a winery, and rarely find at a wine event.

Such a pristine environment makes it much easier to pick up on the subtleties that make one wine different from another. This is an ideal situation, and not always available, to say the least, but if you are hosting a wine tasting yourself, shoot for perfection.

White table cloths are great for a wine tasting, but beware that there is a near certain chance that there will be red wine stains on it before long. I opt to use an inexpensive sheet instead. Only a few dollars, and it will stand up to repeated bleaching, and when it does fall apart, it is disposable, unlike your Aunt Betty's hand me downs.

Wine glasses should all be the same. I use the industry standard INAO glass, and they are perfect, but whatever you use, try to ensure they are all the same. No point in each of your guests having a different experience, unless of course that is the point of the tasting.

Spit buckets are a must. Not really for spitting in - I use coffee cups for that - a spit bucket is necessary to empty your wine glass to prepare it for the next wine (by the way, I never rinse my glass with water, always with the next wine). An old beat up ice bucket works well, but anything that you can't see through is fine. You don't want your guests looking at the dumped liquid, it is a tad unappetizing.

A dry erase marker is a great tool for marking the glasses. If you have more than one glass per person, marking a number on the bottom (where it will not wear off) is important to help you tell the wines apart. I am set up for tasting, so I can have as many as 9 glasses in front of my students or guests.

Getting the right number of people is important. There are 15 tastes of wine in a bottle. That makes 10 to 12 a good sized tasting group. If your tasting is more like a cocktail party, than figure a bottle of wine for every 3 or 4 people. Just be sure you have enough wine to go around, so no one gets left out.

Food is the final part of the wine tasting experience. Here I am about to give a bit of advice that most of you will likely ignore. Don't eat when you are tasting wine. Easy for me to say, I spit (as do all of my students) but if you are drinking more than not, the lack of food will lead directly to inebriation, so take this with a grain of salt.

There is an expression among professional wine tasters "Avoid food when buying wine, serve cheese when selling wine." Food changes the way wine tastes, and cheese, with its wonderful flavors and unctuous texture, can hide many faults in a wine. If you are being serious about tasting, try not to eat, if the tasting is fun, try to make sure the foods go well with the food (or not, that too is another tasting in of itself).

So what foods, besides bread and cheese, should you serve? With so many choices, it is actually easier to mention what to avoid. Vinegar, artichokes and sweet things all make wine taste weird. Try to find foods that are unctuous (which is a nice way of saying, full of fat) and not too strongly flavored. Meats do well, and for the vegetarians, a shiitake mushroom is a good substitute.

Above all make sure your wine tasting is fun. If your group is not into serious tasting, don't make them sit down and takes notes. You can always pay as much attention as you like, without inflicting pain on those guests that are simply not into it.