A tool for everyone, specialists or beginners

  • You like to drink wine, but you ‘don’t understand a thing about it’. You wish there was a simple way of learning how to train your nose and better identify your taste so you can be a more discerning buyer.
  • You are a weekend wine enthusiast or a long-standing wine lover who is looking for a method to become a better wine taster, able to describe a wine accurately and make an educated guess about its origin and age.
  • You are a wine student or professional taster, sommelier or oenologist, and you need a tool to help you exercise your sense of smell on a regular basis and improve your olfactory memory.
  • You are intimidated or put off by the elitist, coded vocabulary of coffee connoisseurs and are looking for a more entertaining and sensory educational approach.
  • You want to find a gift for a wine enthusiast who has everything and that is more original than a bottle of fine wine or a corkscrew.

Do any of these descriptions fit? Then a Le Nez du Vin aroma kit is the perfect choice!

As professional tools or for games with friends, the aroma kits have something for everyone: tasters, coffee professionals and amateurs alike.

Train your sense of smell

Playing a major role in taste, the sense of smell is essential in discerning flavours.

Yet it is difficult to identify the aromatic notes emanating from your glass of wine. Have you ever experienced the feeling of knowing but not recognising a smell? Nothing could be more normal! In the same way that we learn to read, write and count, smelling requires training.

While Le Nez du Vin is a work tool highly reputed by professionals, it can also be used as a game accessible to anyone. In just a few weeks, you’ll be able to distinguish, name and remember aromas.

You may ask: ‘What use is that?’

Make rapid progress in wine tasting

First of all, recognising the aromas in wine enriches your tasting vocabulary.

Putting your impressions into words increases the pleasure of drinking wine and allows you to share your experiences with others.

Second, a wine’s aromas tell us about the type of grape(s) it is made from, its geographical
origin, the way it was made and matured, and its age.

Between 700 and 1,000 volatile aromatic compounds have been identified in wine. You will discover a range of the most characteristic in Le Nez du Vin, categorised into fruity, floral, vegetal, spicy, animal and toasty notes and according to when they appear. Primary aromas (or varietal aromas) come from the grape variety, the terroir where it was grown, and when it was grown (the vintage). An example is methoxypyrazine, which has notes of green peppers. Associated mainly with Cabernet varieties (Franc and Sauvignon), this group of compounds is a sign of grapes harvested when under-ripe.

Secondary aromas are created during the winemaking process. They depend on the yeasts and bacteria present and the fermentation conditions. Isoamyl acetate, for example, with its banana notes, is produced by the yeasts at the start of fermentation, and its synthesis is also encouraged by the carbonic maceration used for Beaujolais Nouveau.

Tertiary aromas develop during maturation in casks or vats and ageing in the bottle. For example, eugenol, with its clove-like aroma, is one of the compounds transmitted to a wine by oak barrels.

Become a Sherlock Holmes of wine

In Le Nez du Vin, the materials (book, cards and/or fact sheets) that accompany the aroma vials serve as your guide. These provide a list of characteristic notes for each grape variety and vineyard in France and around the world, making the link between the aromas and the wine bottles you open. This will hone your nose for your future experiences with wine, and deepen the pleasure of your olfactory investigations!

Imagine for example that someone hands you a glass of white wine. Thanks to regular practice with our vials, you detect hints of lime blossom, toasted hazelnut, butter and vanilla. All are precious clues. From the book in the kit, you learn that this aromatic profile is very characteristic of Chardonnay, that the buttery nuance comes from diacetyl, a molecule formed during malolactic fermentation, and that the vanilla is a sign the wine was aged in wood. Could this be a Burgundy wine? Elementary, my dear Watson!

Refine your taste

Let’s say you’re an amateur who enjoys highly aromatic white wines. Through your training with Le Nez du Vin, you’ll learn that you can confidently turn to Gewurztraminer and the varieties of the Muscat family. What do they have in common? Their richness in monoterpenes, highly aromatic compounds that appear early in the grape berry. These compounds give off notes of rose and lychee, lily of the valley and lemongrass.

Mastering a range of aromas is also a way to ensure wine and food pairings that hit all the right notes. Aromas act as a connecting thread between a wine and the dish it is paired with (ideally, it is better to start with the wine to create the menu rather than the other way round). A good sommelier knows that it is not necessarily the dominant aromatic element that should guide the pairing, but a very distinctive note (discover some examples).

Start your sensory journey

With a selection that includes the Master Kit 54 aromas, Red Wine 12 aromas, Oak Cask 12 aromas, and Wine Faults 12 aromas, Éditions Jean Lenoir offers aroma kits for all tastes and all levels.

To find the one best suited to your needs, discover the complete collection of Le Nez du Vin.