Musings

Reflections on life lived by a coast

  • Home
  • Travel
  • Yoga
You are here: Home / Archives for wine aroma wheel

Teaching Wine Appreciation

June 27, 2013 •

Last week I had the joy of intro­duc­ing my nephew to the basics of wine tast­ing. He had just turned 21, and was inter­ested in learn­ing to taste wine. This inspired me to plan his birth­day gift as a mem­o­rable expe­ri­ence, one that might plant seeds for life­long learn­ing and enjoy­ment.

After get­ting his par­ents’ per­mis­sion for this gift con­cept, I set about plan­ning an evening that he’d enjoy — and learn from. I decided to cook him a “foodie-style” din­ner that would be well matched to sev­eral white wine vari­etals, and intro­duce a sys­tem for wine appre­ci­a­tion…

A Systematic Approach

Know­ing that my nephew had stud­ied bio­chem­istry in col­lege, I decided to apply a sys­tem­atic approach. My hope was to intro­duce a sys­tem that he could use over time to hone his skills at clar­i­fy­ing and describ­ing his impres­sions of each glass of wine.

Davis-Wine-Aroma-WheelTo help him focus and then orga­nize his impres­sions, I intro­duced my nephew to the wine aroma wheel. This wheel was devised by oenol­ogy pro­fes­sors at UC Davis, to help peo­ple via a shared lan­guage for describ­ing aro­mas and/or taste sen­sa­tions trig­gered by a spe­cific glass of wine. (For those of you who are tech­ni­cally minded, think of this as a tax­on­omy for aroma-based wine attrib­utes.)

Because this was his intro­duc­tory les­son, I asked my nephew to focus on just the two inner cir­cles of the aroma wheel. He got quite good at describ­ing the fruity and herba­ceous qual­i­ties of the glasses he tasted. The other char­ac­ter­is­tics were largely beyond what a new­bie could detect or describe.

To help ori­ent him to some of the fruity qual­i­ties he might observe, I pro­vided some fresh apples, lemons and other fruits as sen­sory trig­gers. This tac­tic proved to be quite help­ful to my nephew.

Wine Pairing with Food

I decided to let my nephew com­pare and con­trast 3 dif­fer­ent white wine vari­etals: ries­ling, sauvi­gnon blanc, and chardon­nay. We did so in a vari­ety of ways.

We smelled and tasted small sips from each glass on its own, and noted our impres­sions. I made him write down his com­ments on a piece of paper, to rein­force the activ­ity of pay­ing atten­tion to what he was see­ing, smelling or tast­ing. (His least favorite part of the evening…)

I had pre­pared a chicken dish that was mar­i­nated in the ries­ling, lemon juice, zest and slices along with fresh tar­ragon. I also served a potato dish and some veg­eta­bles that would­n’t fight the wines. For dessert we had a cus­tardy home­made bread pud­ding.

As expected, he pre­ferred the off-dry ries­ling. Because we used sev­eral dif­fer­ent ways to appre­ci­ate the wines, my nephew learned that his reac­tion to each glass dif­fered based on:

  • The sequence in which he tasted them;
  • Whether he was tast­ing each wine on its own, or with food;
  • How much time had elapsed since the wines were first poured;
  • Whether or not he had cleansed his palate before tast­ing the next wine.

He learned that what he liked on its own was not nec­es­sar­ily what he liked best with food, and vice versa. He did­n’t really enjoy the chardon­nay except when he tasted it with the cus­tardy bread pud­ding.

My nephew noted that sauvi­gnon blanc, a wine he found too bit­ter and astrin­gent on its own, paired well with the lemony chicken — and that he quite liked it when served with the right dish.

We both enjoyed the evening. His par­ents (who got the report after­wards) were amazed that my nephew was thor­oughly engaged in the expe­ri­ence for over an hour — until it was time for him to watch Game 5 of Bru­ins-Black­hawks series.

For a diehard Bru­ins fan like my nephew, what could com­pete with Game 5?

About This Blog

Reflec­tions on life, travel, books, and yoga. Think­ing out loud about the pur­suit of mind­ful­ness and well-being.

Learn­ing how to recover from the loss of a beloved spouse, and then to find a trans­for­ma­tive path for­ward.

About Me

Semi-retired marketing exec, transitioning from a career in high tech. Now "managed" by two Tonkinese cats. Missing travel and friends on the West Coast. Avid reader and foodie. Staying active with long walks, biking, kayaking and yoga.

Recent Posts

  • Wet Sand, Wet Boots, Birds
  • Living with Vintage Items
  • Slowing Down
  • Reflections on My Camino
  • Going Off the Beaten Track in France

© 2020 by Christine Thompson. All rights reserved. • Log in