Wine Testing and Seasonal Variations
Wine testing is a scientific approach to sensory evaluation of wines. This involves conducting blind tasting tests which aim to eliminate personal bias or environmental influences like diet or time of day from influencing taste evaluations of wine samples. Perhaps the best-known example of blind tasting was during 1976’s Judgment of Paris competition in which California wines outshone French ones according to judges – an unlikely result from non-blinded contests.
Wine aroma, or its bouquet, is detected by millions of receptors located in your olfactory bulb and detected via volatile chemicals like terpenes and norisoprenoids vaporising from grape berries into your nose and wafting upwards into your olfactory canal. Numerous aromatic compounds work individually and collectively to produce complex flavour profiles in wine.
Aromas associated with wines include grass, black pepper, rosemary and thyme; flowers like rose, honeysuckle and violet; earthiness (wet stones, chalk damp leaves) and barnyard aromas; spices such as cloves nutmeg cinnamon can also be detected depending on ageing in oak barrels – as can toasty/nutty notes that hint of oak barrel aging; other notes could include petrol burnt rubber mouldy/off smells depending on age of wine and its maturation process.
An analysis of wine can provide producers with important data, including sugar and alcohol content, pH level, color intensity, leg structure and leg width. A descriptive analysis can also show whether changes in grape cultivation or production have had any bearing on its attributes; and if so, what impact they are having.