The Auswine Forum

In a glass before you taste it can you identify whether the tannins are overpowering and/or all but gone? Can you infer anything about tannins from the smell?!?

Cheers

I'd argue you can smell tannins as such (they are too big to be volatile) but you can smell things that go with them.
eg overpressed reds have a hard tannin structure but what you can actually smell is the seed oil that goes with it.
Also you can actually buy tannins to add to wine (I've seen them in the dim dark days when I worked for other people) and they don't smell much at all in their pure state.
Perhaps a touch cardboardy but thats about it .
Anyone else have opinions?

cheers
Smithy

No, you can't smell tannins (these bloody sensory evaluationists are taking over the world)!

You can smell oak, which might indicate tannins, you can smell fruit - and depending on how good you are you might find something in the fruit that would indicate to you how long/hard they were pressed and lead to a conclusion about the resultant tannins, but I don't believe you can smell the tannins themselves.

A cup of tea doesn't smell 'tannic' does it?

cheers,
Graeme

Ever stuck your head in a bag of tannin....ohhhhh it smells alright

DaveB wrote:Ever stuck your head in a bag of tannin....ohhhhh it smells alright

I think the question was 'in a glass...' not 'in a winery lab...'

Graeme

I think I know that........

In that case.....yes I can smell added tannin in a wine

GraemeG wrote:No, you can't smell tannins (these bloody sensory evaluationists are taking over the world)!..............................


cheers,
Graeme

Its just too obvious to let go! Graeme I take it you don't use any senses to evaluate wine?

Mike

KMP wrote:

GraemeG wrote:No, you can't smell tannins (these bloody sensory evaluationists are taking over the world)!..............................
cheers,
Graeme

Its just too obvious to let go! Graeme I take it you don't use any senses to evaluate wine?
Mike

Occasionally I've talked about the difference between what I think of as 'sensory evaluation' which seems to oscillate entirely around identifying fruit and aromas, vs the approach of old school tasters who could be better described as 'palate structuralists.' For example, I found the following note on this forum, which seems to me to place almost all the emphasis on fruit and aroma:

Yellowy light gold. This is the first time for me to have this xxx from xxx, and I quite like what I had. In some ways, this is like a restrainted Sauvignon Blanc without the intense passionfruit / gooseberry / tropical grassy nose that one associates with a NZ SB. Instead, I thought this wine had some hints of apple, some tropical fruits, and pear on the nose. The wine tasted a little of almond and white pepper with a decent finish. It also has a denser and rounder mouthfeel than a NZ SB, almost like as if some of this wine has seen a little bit of time in an oak barrel. I quite like this wine...

It's actually not bad; and most posters here are pretty good and do a reasonable note. But there was little here about acid, finish (decent?), length; only very passing references to body, weight, intensity. Lots of fruits, though.

Contrast this:
Crimson centre to slightly red-brown rim with a touch or wateriness. Initial nose is blueberries and possibly even bilberries. Became a bit smoky and bacony on the nose with time. Very soft and velvety mouthfeel, fully resolved tannins, with a lovely savoury blackberry flavour and a touch of black pepper on the finish. Really delicate and gentle, medium bodied with a moderately long finish. The fruit, the weight and the length of this wine just kept increasing throughout the night, as did ever so slight drying tannins on the front, over about four hours of drinking.

Fewer fruit emphasis, more structure. If you look back 30 years to the notes writers made then, there seems much more emphasis on the structural aspects of a wine. Listing of aromas is pretty dull stuff, for me at least. That's what I mean about 'sensory evaluationists' taking over the world.

Sure I use senses to evaluate wine. But that's not quite what I meant.

(Also, I'm not meaning to take shots at anyone, so if you recognise your notes above, don't take it personally. I'm also aware that my own notes allfrequently fail to adequately convey the experience I've had of a wine - I'll cheerfully concede that a great tasting note is a bloody hard thing to write.)
cheers,
Graeme

Nice post, Graeme. And thanks Mike, for asking the question.