With wine it is the equivalent of "Continuing Education classes"; the education and discovery never ends. Even a casual drinker of wine eventually will arrive at a point where subjects of "flavor", "taste" and "mouth-feel" will become-the search. Well, maybe obsession would be the extreme but the experiences with wine are greatly enhanced when there is a focus on the aroma, flavor and mouth-feel of wine. The question now becomes: Are you getting a full 100% enjoyment out of your bottle of wine? Try bringing the total experience of that bottle of wine into your consciousness.
The science behind why we like wine takes a PhD to fully understand, which is why the wine industry is so interested in understanding the science behind wines' taste, flavor, aroma, and mouth-feel. One of the leaders in this research in the U.S. is Dr. Ann Noble a former professor at the University of California-Davis. Dr. Noble is the premier expert on the interaction of flavor, aroma and mouth-feel and is the inventor of the Wine Aroma Wheel. Another expert on the chemistry of fine wines is Mr. Henry Wedler, a candidate for his PhD in Computational Organic Chemistry. His expertise is the chemistry of fine wines relating to the primary senses of olfaction (perception of aromas), as well as taste (perceived by gustation) as well as of mouth-feel, perceived by the sense of touch (nociception).
The research of Dr. Noble and others and the work in chemistry of Wedler and others, we can begin to explain and understand why we like a specific wine at a given time and with a meal pairing. It can be said that wine is not a drinker's beverage like beer; it should be enjoyed as art. (Although there are many who would argue that craft beers are similar to wine in their complexity.) Processing why we like specific art is a mental exercise much like appreciating wine art.
There are a plethora of famous quotes from famous people about the artistry of wine, but without the definitions of taste, smell/aromas, and feel of wine in the mouth, it would be truly difficult to be precise in explaining the artistry of wine. Hence, the work of Dr. Noble and Mr. Wedler, amongst others around the wine and academic world, puts words to the music of wine.
In research for this article Dr. Noble added context to the discussion about flavor/taste, aroma, and mouth-feel. "You cannot separate taste, aroma or mouth-feel and still have any meaningful discussion; the three are inextricably related," said Dr. Noble. "Let me prove my point: hold your nose and take a drink of an unknown beverage and try to define exactly the taste. It is impossible because our brains need the additional references of smell and mouth-feel along with taste."
To this point it is a fact that the character of wine is best summarized by its flavor, aroma and mouth- feel. We like certain wines based upon the olfactory processing of these cues and our brains reaction to these inputs. To be specific, wine olfactory inputs (aroma compounds) first activate our "olfactory bulb". Signals sent from the olfactory bulb to other areas in the brain, are ultimately integrated in the prefrontal orbitocortex of our brain with the input from our taste and mouthfeel receptors. The brain dictates likes and dislikes of taste/flavors and therefore it can be reprogrammed to change perceptions with additional experiences. Remember that first taste of something we did not like and people said "it is an acquired taste" and now you like that brie cheese.
AROMA's
Dr. Noble, while at UC Davis developed the Davis Wine Aroma Wheel which is literally a circular depiction (a pie chart format) of three concentric rings radiating from the center of the wheel chart. Moving to the outer ring, each piece of the pie chart adds more complex descriptors of myriad descriptions of wine's aromas. The Aroma Wheel starts off with 12 simple descriptors that could be called macro aroma's, and ends (outer ring) with a very defined set of 125 aroma descriptive notes to explain what a person may be smelling in the wine. For example, starting off with a top level smell of vegetation could actually end up in a micro smell that might be as unexpected as- eucalyptus.
The Aroma Wheel will enable the wine drinker to be precise in analyzing smells in wine and eventually progress to a point that Wheel isn't necessary to mentally organize and define aromas.
As a fun exercise, obtain a Wine Aroma Wheel to use at a gathering of friends for a wine tasting, explain the wheel concept and let others experiment with defining the aromas they smell in their wine of choice.
Obviously, if a person's brain (processing olfactory inputs) is saying there is an aroma, of say tobacco coming through; tobacco is not part of the winemaking process. "It is the chemical compounds in the wine that interact with the alcohol and yeast that create the aromas in any wine," said Welder. "Further, as wine matures, even in the bottle, and is exposed to the cork, wine can become even more complex in its aromas. Volatiles are mentioned frequently in a 1996 paper written by Dr. Noble titled-Taste-Aroma Interactions. These volatiles in wine include the esters given off by the compounds that create the aromas we love in wine.
"The most complicated assimilation of compounds on Earth is in red wine and human blood," says Wedler. There are estimated to be more than 1,000 compounds in red wine and the human perception of what the aromas are, are decoded by a person's-physiological perspective, psychological make-up, perceptions and how our brains have cataloged our experiences with taste, aromas and mouth feel. "Even when a person is agitated about a situation, their mood can change the palate and that impacts the aroma and taste of wine," commented Wedler. Point being: stay in a good mood to enjoy wine!
The question begging to be asked is: Where do the aroma compounds come from? According to Dr. Noble, they come from the varietal grape, the management of the vineyard, the winemakers' technique, aging and "region of origin" or terroir. In extreme cases the air in the vineyard impacts the development of aromas in the grape and ultimately in the wine.
There are ongoing discussions about the alcohol levels in today's wine. However, alcohol does play an important part in the aroma composition. Wines of higher alcohol are reported by some to be sweeter, but in studies of model wines, higher alcohol wines were more bitter. Bottom-line, a winemaker can impact flavor and aroma by controlling alcohol and sugar content.
FLAVOR (TASTE AND AROMA)
Aromas are what make a person excited to get at wine flavors. "Taste and aroma interactions occur each time we eat or drink. Normal conditions of consumption of foods and beverages result in simultaneous perception of aroma and taste coupled with tactile sensations (mouth-feel), all which contribute to an overall impression of flavor. Tastes can increase apparent intensity of aromas," writes Dr. Noble in her 1996 report.
What makes wine so enjoyable are the sensations of flavor stimuli perceived in the brain via nasal and oral interaction. "Flavor has been defined as the "psychological interpretation of a physiological response to a physical stimulus". Therefore, to appreciate flavors in wine there must be separate and distinct sensations of smell, taste and touch (mouth-feel).
Generally, flavor is associated with aroma in that the varietal and "region or origin" plays a significant part. After that the winemaker gets involved in managing the tasks: crush, handling the juice, fermentation methods, pressing, aging (oak, steel, etc.), blending and finishing. Finishing is the process before bottling that control balancing the acid levels in the wine. After all, most people buy wine for the flavor aspects and there are a lot of subsets in the above tasks that impact flavor.
Research indicates that taste and aroma interplay is a learned and a top of the mind awareness; it is simply how the brain works. To illustrate, taste/flavor sets the stage for the orchestra of wine's performance. The tongue detects only four tastes-bitter, sweet, salt and sour. To get to the music of wine (taste and aroma notes) the nasal passages must get the notes to the brain and then the music begins. For this reason, wine must be dispersed throughout the mouth. As an aside, tannins do not posses any flavors but tannins do contribute to mouth-feel, this will be discussed later.
As pointed out in "Taste-Aroma Interactions", without our nasal cavity and the nose, approximately 80% of taste will disappear. It can be said that the ethanol vapors from a newly opened bottle of wine can be off putting wherein the nose but that is a passing sensation.
MOUTH-FEEL
Dr. Richard Gawel at the Department of Horticulture, Viticulture and Oenology, University of Adelaide, Australia has taken a page from UC Davis and developed a Mouth-feel Tasting Wheel. His efforts follow that of Dr. Noble, in defining specific terms for concisely defining attributes of mouth-feel.
The Mouth-Feel Wheel has a total of 68 descriptors of Mouth-feel. Some seem to overlay taste/flavor. For example, the "Irritation" category on the Wheel has a sub category of "spice". Spice is also a category on the Aroma Wheel.
Texture is another way to understand Mouth-feel and really defines how the tongue recognizes low alcohol, fruit taste, sweet, sour, etc. and the heft of a red wine versus white wine. Understanding wine is a volitional choice that is not necessarily a skill, it comes from experiences on the palate, in the nose and in the brain. "95% of wines' flavor is nasal/olfactory effects processed in the brain," says Wedler. Wine is art and you can enjoy art without a lot of explanations.
Ultimately, the brain dictates taste.
Finally, the study of chemistry, psychology, physiology and perceptions ENHANCES our appreciation of wine taste/flavor, aroma and mouth-feel. A wine drinker (reds or whites) becomes more coherent about descriptions of their favorite wines as their vocabulary improves. Dr. Noble's Wine Aroma Wheel helps enhance our vocabulary. As we all know, a person's vocabulary improves with age and education and that seems to also be a fact with wine; more experiences come with time and cognitive assimilation of facts. Enjoyment of wine is not ephemeral.