How to identify aromas in wine

Here at El Coto de Rioja, we want to teach you about all the ins-and-outs and fun facts about the world of wine in a simple, fun and complete way. That’s why we’ve created WineClass, a series of quick mini-classes full of useful tips and tricks that can help you experience wine in ways that you'd never have imagined.

In episode two, we’re going to tell you all the different elements in the smelling stage. We’ll tell you what aromas there are and how to tell them apart. Hit Play!

The art of drinking wine brings in almost all of our senses. That’s why we say it's a well-rounded pleasure. Today, we want to tell you the role that smell plays.

Since this is a complex drink, of course its aromas are equally complex. Every process in making a wine gives the drink specific aromas to make it a unique experience.

The aroma that a glass of wine gives off can tell us the story of the drink. What’s more, smell plays a fundamental role when it comes to working out if a wine is right for drinking. Do you want to know just how important it is to smell a wine before drinking it? Click the button below:

Nowadays, there are thousands upon thousands of aromas, but in the world of wine, they are split into three main groups or types. These are knowns as primary aromas, secondary aromas and tertiary aromas. Let’s take a look at what this means!

Primary aromas are what tell us the most “primitive” information about the wine. In other words, they tell us about where it comes from, such as the type of grape or the vineyard. That’s why the primary aromas are the notes that remind us of fruits, fresh herbs, vegetables or minerals.

We can identify this type of aroma with the wine resting in the glass just after serving.

Secondary aromas are the aromas connected with the alcoholic and malolactic fermentation process of the wine. That’s why the notes we smell can remind us of things like the yeast.

We detect secondary aromas by swirling the glass around and smelling it again.

When we talk about tertiary aromas, we mean the ones connected with the barrel ageing and even the bottle ageing. This is definitely the most difficult group because the aromas become much more complex. These are the aromas the make up the famous bouquet.

We can smell these aromas after swirling the glass and letting it settle again.

At first, it might seem overly tricky to tell the aromas in a wine apart. But, slowly but surely, and with the right kind of guidance (such as WineClass), you can train your senses to get the most out of them.

To make it easier to identify each different aroma, use this little guide of the different types of aromas that you can find in a tasting: These are the main groups of smell that exist:

1. Fruit: citric, tropical, etc.
2. Vegetable: fresh herbs
3. Floral
4. Animals
5. Balsamic: incense
6. Chemical: acid
7. Spices
8. Empyreumatic: smoke, coffee, etc.
9. Wood

As always, here at WineClass, we want to show you simple but effective tips that you can put into practice anywhere.

To train your sense of smell, there’s really easy technique. You just need to “block out” all the other senses that could throw you off the scent. In this case, we cover our eyes so that we can focus on the nose.