I got something called a Wine Awakenings kit for my birthday the other day and I'm trying to figure out how the heck to use it. It's got a whole bunch of bottles of odours for chardonnay and the book says you practice identifying but my question is why? It's neat looking but does anybody know what I'm supposed to do with it? My sister in law is coming to visit soon and I want to tell her I'm using it.
The purpose of a wine aroma kit (there are a few out there, some of them with up to 54 little phyles of aroma oil--very expensive), is to develope an olfactory memory of certain aromas and smells that occur in wine. While your little phyles may offer more intense aromas than the actual wine, ie, the banana may be powerful, or the vanilla or oak may be very pungent, the purpose is to create an impression in your olfactory (nose) bulb, and a memory. Therefore, the next time you have white wine, if your memory is conditioned to the aroma of what characteristics you find in chardonnay, you will be in a better position to recognize and evaluate it as a connoisseur or critic, or whatever.
Nothing, however, beats just sampling lots of different chardonnay's from different appellations, and vintages, but in the interim, the aroma kits can be a useful tool. It teaches your nose how to recognise subtle smells.
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