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Hello there! I'm Dr. Vinifera, or "Vinny" for short. Ask me your toughest wine questions, from the technical aspects of winemaking to the fine points of etiquette. I hope you find my answers educational and even amusing. Want to see more of them? Check out my archive. And here are my most Frequently Asked Questions.
Dear Dr. Vinny,
What would be the best way to do the olfactory appreciation of a wine? By taking repeated short sniffs (like dogs do), or by inhaling deep and slow two or more times? I personally prefer the second, though I've heard of the first.
—Ruben, Aruba
Dear Ruben,
When it comes to the "best" way to smell, I had to check with Leslie Stein, who's a Ph.D. for the Monell Chemical Senses Center, a scientific institute for research on taste and smell. She pointed me toward a couple of studies that have been done in the area. The first study said that it appears that the "optimum perception" among sniffs in humans is between .39 and .64 seconds, suggesting short sniffs are most effective.
The next study said that "natural" sniffing is best for everyone, and you can't do much to improve the efficiency of sniffing. That is, a single sniff gives you just as much information as multiple sniffs—when we sniff several times in a row, it's just to confirm our impressions, not necessarily to collect more data. The only exception is if odors are "mixed," then several sniffs might be needed to discriminate all the different components. I think this is the difference between sniffing once to realize "Oh yeah, that's wine" and sniffing several times more to pick out all the complexities in a wine's aromatics: "Oh yeah, that's wine, and it smells like roses and tar."
—Dr. Vinny
Do you have a question for me? Fire away!
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