Smells like wine, tastes like wine, but IS it wine?

Here's a great quote I picked up via a piece in today's NY Times Mag:

"The taste and the sense of smell form but one sense, of which the mouth is the laboratory and the nose is the chimney" - so says Jean-Anthelme Brillat-Savarin,  the noted french politician and gourmet who wrote the book on fine dining way back in 1825.   

There are so many skills required of a wine maker that it seems impossible  anyone could be good at it  - but perhaps the greatest, most useful, most mysterious  skill to possess would be that of being able to precisely define what you are smelling and tasting in wine as it progresses.   It's a neat trick.  Wine is a living thing and what you are smelling and tasting in a wine as it ferments and ages is the essence of its aliveness.  There are names for all this of course, and you can identify things based on off-odors (microbial spoilage, oxidation, volatile acidity) or pleasing odors and taste (esters, balanced acids and tannins, ripe fruitiness).  But the two-step process of smelling then tasting completes the definition and brings the experience into focus.  Wine makers have a fantastic vocabulary when describing what they are tasting and it's really interesting to see how easily their definitions can swing from scientific to emotional.  They lead with their nose and finish with their hearts.

Posted by Denise