Aroma Wheel: What The Heck Is It?
Wine & Your Senses
Ernest Hemingway once said “A person with increasing knowledge and sensory education may derive infinite enjoyment from Wine.” With that being said, the best way to learn all there is to know about wine is to incorporate as many senses as possible into the entire experience.
The most important senses involved in the enjoyment of wine are going to be sight (the appearance of the wine, it’s depth of color, legs, etc.), taste (an obvious sense when enjoying wine but it goes far beyond the obvious up-front tastes), and most importantly is smell (the different aromas and undertones of the fruit and oak used in making the wine).
For some people, identifying different aromas when taking in the nose of the wine can be difficult. An aroma wheel, however, can help pinpoint some more obvious aromas involved in smelling the wine.
The Aroma Wheel
An aroma wheel looks a lot like a pie chart. It has different segments and colors, with each section and color showing a different word. They start off with more obvious aroma undertones near the center, and near the outer edge of the circle are more specifics. Fruity, spicy, and earthy are some of the more obvious tastes of wine, and they are located at the center of the aroma wheel.
Once a taster is able to identify a particular nuance of the aroma of a wine, like spicy, the aroma wheel then offers the wine enthusiast some other options to pin down what spicy undertone they are able to recognize. They may be able to identify spices like pepper, clove, or cinnamon just from smelling the wine.
The Aroma Wheel & Learning Wine
Aroma wheels won’t identify all of the different nuances in the nose of a wine. Rather, it gives tasters and enthusiasts a place to start by noting some of the most common aromas found in wine. It is a great tool for people who are just learning to enjoy wine to be able to identify specific qualities of the wine they enjoy. It gives descriptive words to enthusiasts to be able to describe what a wine smells like and tastes like so that others are able to understand the wine better.
It allows people to speak about the enjoyment they get when they smell a beautiful, fruity bottle of white wine. They can speak about how it is citrusy, and then narrow it down even more by saying it is lemony. It gives a vocabulary anybody can understand to a subject which many people find intimidating initially.
People who are learning about wine are often put off at first by how overwhelming it can be. There are so many different wines to choose from, and so many things to consider. The color, taste, and smell of a wine are some of the most important keys to enjoying wine to it’s fullest. By being able to discern some of the more subtle undertones of a certain wine, enthusiasts are able to put words to the smell and taste of the wine they are enjoying as a means of sharing it with others. By using an aroma wheel, beginners can find the exact words they are looking for when enjoying fine wine.
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