J. Timothy Rants & Wines

Setting Your Nose Straight: Secondary Aromas

           Ah yes, the wine is opened, poured, and the glass is gently lifted to your nose. It is now left up to your nose to take in all the aromatics; honey, cedar, cherries, coffee, apricots, apples, earth….it’s endless. But what exactly is responsible for all of the aromas we are able to perceive? Is it the fruit? Is it the wine making process? Is it terroir? We know that different grapes produce different flavour profiles, but what else is there (other than different grapes) giving off all of these magnificent aromas and tastes? Let’s find out.

     You may have already heard the term “secondary aromas” -but never given it a second thought. What someone is referring to when they say secondary aromas is aromatics and flavours that a wine has acquired over time, and that go beyond the simple ingredients Mother Nature has placed in the bottle. For instance, a newly vinified and bottled Cabernet sauvignon (if it is typical of its character) will display aromas of things like; blackcurrant, plumb, bell pepper, mint, violets or maybe eucalyptus. However, a Cabernet sauvignon that has spent time in oak before bottling may also exhibit things like almond, coconut, smoke, toast, or vanilla. Now take that same Cabernet sauvignon, treat it in oak, bottle it and then let the bottle age for years. Now you will find that same Cab exhibiting things like leather, cigar, coffee, earth, truffle, dust, or tobacco leaf. This is what is meant by secondary aromas, things that happen after the wine has been made.

     It makes sense when you think about it. Wine is fruit juice, so you would think that things like lime, apple, cherries, strawberry or kiwi would not be a huge surprise to taste- when drinking fruit juice. Vinified fruit produces fruit flavours. Clear as a bell, right? Now the ingenuity of Man comes into play (along with the avant-garde techniques of mad scientists).

     Somewhere along the way wine makers decided that freshly fermented fruit was too simple, so they made it more complex. This is where, and why, aging in wood comes into play. You have all heard people talking about “oak aging”, or “time in oak”, or “oak cask”. Now, did you ever ask yourself, “Why oak? Why not pine, or elm or maple?”  Although there is the odd wine barrel out there made from walnut or cherry wood, oak is the preferred wood to use when aging wine. The reasons are many; oak is a strong, hard wood (ask anyone who has ever gotten an oak splinter in their hand), and it is leak proof when used to make barrels. Oak seems to exhibit a certain charm over wine. Its chemical makeup is a perfect home for wine. Over time its phenols emit flavours like vanilla, tea, and tobacco. And the porousness of oak lets in just enough oxygen to aid in the aging of wine, without leading to too much evaporation.   If you wanted to get really technical you could do a study into the difference between French oak vs. American oak, or Russian oak vs. Albanian oak. All of these woods have differing qualities that make each suitable for different wines. So now when we talk about secondary aromas/flavours it is clear to see why a wine might taste like cigar, sawdust, smoke, pencil shavings, cedar, clove or sweet like vanilla, caramel or coconut. Oak softens, sweetens and well, let’s face it, tastes like wood – sometimes. In any case these are all considered secondary aromas. Now the ethereal part.

     We can explain away the fruit flavours, and the secondary flavours due to oak and oak aging, but how about bottle aging? Bottle aging produces even stranger secondary aromas/flavours. We move further and further from the vine and closer and closer to higher prices. What I mean by this is that a skilled winemaker can tell how their grapes are going to interact with the wine making process, wood aging and bottle aging to produce consistent, outstanding wines that will fetch high prices. With bottle age come things that one would not think possible of a wine’s attributes. Give a well made red wine 8 or 10 years in a bottle and you may find inexplicable flavours of; chocolate, barnyard , tar, fig, leather, truffle, mushroom,  bacon fat, sausage, or even salami. These secondary flavours have everything to do with our old friend “terroir” interacting with the aging process behind the cork.  A white wine with age will show things like; canned peas, canned asparagus, tobacco, kerosene, or even lanolin. As odd as some of these things sound, they can be quite astounding and enjoyable.

     It is a good exercise to become familiar with looking for secondary aromas in the wines that you purchase. As well as giving you clues as to how they were made, looking for secondary aromas and getting good at identifying them is exactly the type of exercise that will train your palate to know what you are drinking before someone shows you the label. It’s not magic, it’s repetition – and a little studying, but hey this isn’t stamp collecting!

J.Timothy.