Pipe smoke & sweaty men

Forget about kids. It's wine lovers that say the darndest things.

    It's certainly easy to mock the fanciful terminology that gets bandied about by wine tasters. That stream of consciousness, blizzard of descriptors that turns a glass of red wine from France into a divine liquid that suggests "elements of pencil lead, white truffle and London after an early morning rain storm..." sounds both ridiculous and pompous.

    That said, there is something about our perception of smell that can trigger specific and sometimes surprising sense memories. The most recent example — and one of my all-time favourites — was hearing a student in a recent wine appreciation class explain that a Sauvignon Blanc being tasted reminded her of factory work.

    "It smells like sweaty men," she said matter-of-factly. Something in the wine brought the experience of an old summer job working in a factory near Windsor, Ont. to the present. Not surprisingly, she didn't like the wine just like she didn't like that malodorous job outside of its financial reward.

    There certainly was a "sweaty element" on the nose that suggested the scent of grilling onions or McDonald's hamburgers to me, a person who hadn't worked in that factory. There were also stronger aromas that called to mind grapefruit (from the grapes used) and smoke (from the oak barrels used to mature this barrel-aged Sauvignon Blanc).

    In the past, I have heard students describe wines as being evocative of a grandparent because of lavender, violet or pipe tobacco scents suggested by a wine's aroma. The emotional connection and the memories attached to it are extremely personal. It makes sense to that individual because they have experienced it — they've lived it.

    Professional wine tasters spent a lot of time swirling and smelling samples in the glass because our sense of smell is far more sophisticated than our sense of taste. Human being can identify 10,000 odors, but only five basic tastes. Namely, sweetness, sourness, bitterness, saltiness and savouriness (also referred to as "umami" from the Japanese).

    Much of that swirling and sniffing is done to identify what a wine is and how it was made. Is it a good wine? Was it aged in oak? How evolved are its flavour and aroma? In some instances, however, it illustrates something equally profound about who the taster is and what various experiences shaped them.

Wine of the Week

Matua Valley Wines 2009 Sauvignon Blanc
Hawkes Bay, New Zealand
BC $18.99 (309575) | AB $16 | MB $17.50 (309575) | ON $15.85 (619542)
    While the Marlborough region is responsible for making Sauvignon Blanc synonymous with New Zealand, don't discount the stylish wines coming from the Hawkes Bay region. There's more tropical fruit and elegance here as opposed to the more grassy and assertive Marlborough style. I really enjoy the richness and intensity of this crisp, well-made white.