Of all the little rituals that wine-lovers perform, nothing gets more ridicule than the simple act of swirling wine in a glass, dropping one’s proboscis into it, and inhaling deeply. Non-wine people think this sequence is hysterical: worthless, showy, pretentious, downright risible.
I get the last laugh when non-wine-drinkers don’t do it.
I cannot tell you how many thousands of times—in wine classes, or just tasting with wine beginners—I’ve pointed out that you have to give the glass a series of swirls, followed by a series of sniffs. When the students’ glasses are poured—almost always they pay nose service to my words by dipping their beaks for about a second into the wine below. Then: LIFT-OFF! Before you can say “easily offended wine snob” they are funneling that juice down the gullet…as if THAT’S really tasting wine. Is it the years of finding real wine drinkers to be “silly” at the sniff moment that so forcibly hold the newbies back from olfactory exploration of the wine? What they do looks almost muscular-nervous-system mechanical: they…cannot…forestall…the gulp!
It’s the best way to spoil the pleasure of wine.
There are numerous great reasons for spending nose time before the wine goes anywhere near your lips.
First of all, smelling the wine is exactly analogous to the initial conversation between two people who don’t know each other. It is a gentle, natural way to begin to take the measure of the entity you have before you. Yes, there may be an exchange of bodily fluids soon…but it’s so much nicer if you haven’t rushed. Sniffing for five minutes sets you up for all kinds of things that might otherwise rush past you when you finally indulge.
And what are you looking for as you sniff? Gosh…there are many, many things to think about. Perhaps that’s why neophytes fear the process. Let me try to separate the categories.
One category may be called “grape and wine history.” It is on the nose that you begin to get impressions about the growing of the grapes and the making of the wine. In a dark red wine, for example, from a hot year, my sniffer is on alert for aromas of over-ripeness. When I stick my nose in a glass of dark red, and it smells like cherries…not blackberry jam, or Port…I am relieved. A parallel observation has to do with alcohol…is there too much alcohol in the wine? You can sometimes smell that better than you can taste it (because the alcohol on the palate may be covered up by young fruit).
Wood treatment is another “history” element that comes directly through on the nose. A young California Chardonnay being swirled…and I’m already onto the “too much new oak with moderate toast” rap.
The next category has to do with varietal character. It is true that a wine can be enjoyed without the enjoyer knowing the varieties of grapes that went into the wine. But once you’re trained to look for grape varieties, the process adds a great deal to your pleasure in, and understanding of, the wine. If you hand me a right-bank red Bordeaux, immediately—at sniffing!—I’m thinking about the percentage of Cabernet Franc in the wine. It’s amazing how that little varietal quest focuses my thinking.
Then come the “poetic images”…a game that can also be played with the tastes in your mouth…but it’s much more effective to start that game on your nose. You may, for example, pick up something from the bouquet that repeats in a different way on the palate—and, without the initial whiff, you may not have picked that flavor up. Let’s say the nose gives me very definite white truffle—but the palate is giving me a more generally earthy taste—until I follow the white truffle thought path and discover that it’s there on the palate as well, in a subtle way.
The major point is: the sniffing is “getting to know you.” It is a kind of very necessary warm-up for the rest of the pleasure and analysis to follow.
In fact, for many wine tasters…sniffing is the most pleasurable part of tasting wine! It’s a purer exercise, not muddied up by alcohol, sugar, acid. These things are all important in enjoying and analyzing wine. But the romantics among us might say that the fumes coming off on the nose are the “purer” aspects of a wine’s nature.
Try it! Slow yourself down! Give yourself 2-3 minutes sniffing, before you plunge into the lurid details of what’s in that glass!
