In the last post I explained my internal strategies for looking at a glass of wine in the context of using the deductive tasting grid. At one point I mentioned I thought that the nose of a wine—or smell—was by far the most important aspect of tasting. If anything, because smell accounts for at least 85% of the sense of taste. Given that, I do most of the work in the tasting process when smelling a wine. In fact, by the time I’ve examined the sight and nose, I’ve done most of the work. And when I finally taste a wine, I’m only doing two things: confirming what I’ve already smelled and calibrating the structure (levels of acidity, alcohol, etc.).
Not everyone agrees with my smell-centric philosophy of tasting. There’s a fairly new methodology called Geosensorial tasting. It was created by Julien Camus of The Wine Scholar Guild and a group of European winemakers. In short, the Geosensorial method is palate-centric, meaning the technique emphasizes the flavor and tactile aspects of wine. To quote Camus, “The method focuses on the geometry or shape of a wine in the mouth. It is somewhat a return to how wine was tasted before the advent of analytical tasting as the leading model.”
I reviewed early versions of the Geosensorial tasting grid a few years ago. I thought aspects of the concept had merit, but others would be challenging to standardize, teach, and use for examination purposes. Regardless, more info about Geosensorial tasting method can be found at the following link:
https://www.winescholarguild.com/tag/geosensorial-tasting
My strategies for smelling wine
Back to my internal strategies for smelling wine. I previously mentioned working with Tim Hallbom and Taryn Voget on their “Everyday Genius” project. During our two video sessions, I tasted over a dozen wines with Tim. By tracking my eye movements (and micro-eye movements) and language patterns, we were able to deconstruct my internal smelling and tasting strategies. Perhaps the most important discovery was how I use internal visual to represent practically all of the tasting experience. That’s especially true when it comes to smelling wine, and I’ll go into detail about it shortly. First, here is some background about my strategies for smelling wine.
Smelling technique
One of the chapters in my book, Message in the Bottle: A Guide to Tasting Wine, is called “Glassware Stance.” It’s my term for the routine or ritual one uses when smelling wine. Glassware stance involves the angle of the glass as you hold it as well as the technique you use to smell the wine. With the latter, what I call passive inhalation vs. active inhalation. Those are my terms, by the way. Passive inhalation is what most of the human race does when smelling wine; you rest the glass on your upper lip directly beneath your nose and then smell away. I do something different, which I call active inhalation. I pull the glass away from my face about an inch (or more), open my mouth ¼ – ½ an inch, and breathe in (and out) through my mouth and nose at the same time. Personally, I get much more out of the nose of a wine—or any beverage—by smelling this way, using mouth and nose at the same time. The logic is simple: I’m using both orthonasal and retronasal smell in tandem to process the aromas of a wine. For more info on how to use active inhalation, see chapter 2 in my book (https://timgaiser.com/tastingguide).
Eye positions and smelling wine
One of the other major discoveries from my sessions with Tim was that I use set eye positions and patterns when I smell and taste wine. In behavioral science these are called “vertical and lateral eye movements,” or “eye accessing cues.” These eye positions have to do with different kinds of sensory memory and brain function. I’ve written about eye positions and tasting in a previous blog post (https://timgaiser.com/blog/the-eyes-have-it/).
The most important thing to know about eye movements and smelling wine is that experienced tasters use a consistent starting eye position when they begin the sequence of assessing the aromas in the glass. It’s a way of being consistent when smelling wine, and a starting point of sorts as well. When I coach students for tasting exams, finding their starting eye position is one of the first things we do. Otherwise, the chapter called Glassware Stance mentioned above also has instructions for how to find your starting eye position. Finally, the starting position is one of two eye positions I consistently use when smelling wine.
Using the deductive tasting grid
As I mentioned in the last post, I learned the deductive tasting grid as taught by the Court of Master Sommeliers over 30 years ago. I still use the grid in some form every time I taste wine to this day. Here are the criteria for the “nose” segment from the deductive tasting grid:
- Faults: checking the wine to see if it’s corked, or has other issues like VA, Brett, and more.
- Intensity of aroma: assessing how delicate or aggressive the aroma of the wine is.
- Age assessment: checking the age of the wine through the quality/character of the fruit (see below), non-fruit, and other aspects.
- Fruit: primary and secondary fruit
- Fruit quality/character: how tart or ripe the fruit is as well as other conditions like botrytis, raisination, and more.
- Non-fruit: floral, spice, herbal, vegetal aromas and others. Note that many of what I call impact compounds—a subset of the most important aromas and flavors in wine—are in the non-fruit category. More on that in a moment.
- Earth/mineral: checking the wine for aromas of earth and/or mineral.
- Wood: seeing if oak was used in the aging process of the wine.
Other important factors
Impact compounds: as just mentioned, impact compounds are a subset of the most important aromas and flavors in wine, especially useful for teaching and testing purposes. Some, like pyrazines, terpenes, and rotundone, are from grape chemistry. Others, like lees contact, malolactic fermentation, and the use of oak, are from winemaking.
Blind tasting vs. otherwise: if I’m doing a blind tasting, I pay particular attention to impact compounds and the fruit quality/character as I smell the wine. Both are vitally important to help me identify the grape variety and wine. If I’m not blind tasting, I still use the same routine below, but not in so much detail.
Cause and effect: Finally, as I smell a wine and identify various aromas, I’m also thinking about how and why the wine smells like it does. The causes could include the specific grape variety, the location of the vineyard, how the grapes were grown, the specific vintage, winemaking, and more.
Goals: What I’m trying to achieve when smelling a glass of wine
Discovering what’s in the glass: When smelling a wine, I’m using the deductive grid as a guide to see what the wine offers in the way of aromas.
Hygiene: checking to make sure the wine is in good condition and not flawed
Typicity and quality: For typicity, I’m comparing the wine I’m smelling against other similar wines I’ve previously tasted. In terms of quality, I’m looking for balance in the wine as well as complexity.
Improving personal skills: Every time I pick up a glass to assess a wine, I’m trying to improve my skills as a taster.
Enjoyment: Doing all the above but keeping in mind that the process should be fun. It’s wine, after all.
Procedure: how I smell a glass of wine
Finally, to the process itself. Using the deductive grid as a guideline, here are the strategies I use when smelling wine.
The set up
- I swirl the glass to allow the aromatics in the wine to expand and come up.
- I hold the glass at a 45-50-degree angle and bring it to about an inch away from my nose.
- My eyes immediately move down and about 45-degrees left of center.
- This is my starting eye position. I use it—or some variation of it—every time I start to smell a wine.
- As I look down and to the left, I’m focusing on a point about 15” away.
- I’m not looking at anything per say, just to a place. I’m also using a soft focus with my eyes.
- There’s a shape where I’m looking; it’s transparent but looks like the horn on an old Victrola machine that’s upturned towards me.
- As my eyes get to this starting position—and I’m smelling the wine at the same time, an internal voice asks, “what’s there?” Or some variation of that question. Don’t worry, it’s my inside voice.
- After asking the question, I get an intense feeling of curiosity.
Processing
- After asking what’s there, my eyes move up to what I call the second, or “processing position.” I look out in front of me at eye level about 4-6 feet away. I’m still not looking at anything in particular, but looking at a place out in front of me, still using a soft gaze.
- In a second or two, after my eyes move to this processing position, images of what I’m smelling appear in the space out in front of me in my mind’s eye. I call it my internal IMAX theater.
- The images are memories for whatever fruit, spice, or other aroma I’ve just recognized in the wine.
- These images have size, dimension, proximity, brightness, and many more qualities that are called submodalities.
- The submodalities of the images vary depending on the intensity of the aroma, the age, or other facets.
- If the aroma in question has considerable intensity, I might generate a movie instead of an image. For example, if I’m smelling white peach in a glass of Riesling, I might internally see my hand holding a white peach in front of me, followed quickly by bringing the peach up, smelling it, and then taking a bite. In this case, the movie triggers a detailed memory of the experience of eating a white peach including the image, smell, taste, and texture.
My internal wine map
- After I identify an aroma, I “hold” the image out in front of me a second or two before letting it go.
- Then the image moves down in front of me at floor/ground level about six feet away. I can still clearly see it.
- As I smell the wine for different categories of aromas listed on the deductive grid—fruit, non-fruit, earth, and oak—the images likewise appear and then after a second or two move down to floor level in front of me about six feet away.
- However, there’s an arrangement to all the images by category. From left to right: fruit images are first, then non-fruit, earth/mineral, and finally oak on the right side.
- I call this arrangement my internal wine map or collage. Every wine professional I’ve ever interviewed has some kind of internal map or arrangement to organize and remember a wine’s aromas. These maps vary widely—and wildly—depending on the taster.
- Back to my strategy: If there are more than one image in a category, say fruit, the images are stacked one behind the other (think cafeteria trays). Each successive image behind the first is slightly elevated so I can see all of the fruit images if I need to.
- The more intense aromas have larger, more detailed images that stay either in the front of the stack—or near the front. They also change in position and size once I taste the wine. More on that in the next post.
Two curious things about my internal wine map. First, I never consciously set it up in regard to how it’s arranged. Second, if I try to move any of the images to another position, they immediately snap back to the place where they should be. Strange but true.
Lather, rinse, repeat
- The process repeats itself: my eyes go down to the starting position, a voice asks what’s there, and then my eyes move out front to see the image of what I’ve just smelled. After I recognized the aroma/image, it moves down into the map/collage in the appropriate place.
- It’s a cycle of repeatedly asking “what’s there,” seeing internal images, which then quickly move to a position on my wine map.
- The entire time, I’m using the MS deductive grid as a guide.
Other eye positions and finishing up
- Visual memory: If something about smelling a wine reminds me of an experience—a visual memory—my eyes move up and to the left to retrieve the memory. Also, if for some reason I need to see the MS tasting grid as a reference, I likewise look up and to the left. Immediately, the grid appears, quickly growing to the size of a billboard out in front of me at least 10 feet away. It (the grid) has lights on it like a game show board.
- Auditory memory: If smelling a wine triggers a memory having to do with sound, my eyes move to the left at horizon level to access the memory.
- Kinesthetic memory: Finally, if smelling a wine triggers a feeling of some kind—either physical or emotional—I look down and to the right.
- But ultimately, I’m using two primary eye positions throughout the process of smelling a wine: my starting eye position, where I look down and to the left, and then looking out front at eye level to process it.
Closing thoughts
That’s my internal strategy for smelling wine. Again, I have to note I never knew any of this until the video sessions with Tim Hallbom. There’s a good reason why. Without someone standing next to you as a guide of sorts, it’s almost impossible to do something and be aware of how you’re doing it at the same time. Otherwise, I keep repeating the cycle of smelling the wine, creating internal images for what I’m recognizing, and storing the images on my map so I can remember and retrieve them. Once I’m unable to find any additional aromas, I’m finished assessing the nose and ready to taste the wine. More about that next time.
Read Personal Tasting Strategies Part I: Sight
Learn more professional wine tasting strategies in my book,
Message in the Bottle: A Guide to Tasting Wine
CLICK HERE.
