Taste and aroma descriptions are simply a matter of calling up memories. The best exercise is to focus on what you smell and taste when you eat food and take other liquids. Wine has so many components to it that it often reminds of many other foods. By focusing on other foods, you can better call up those memories when you get aroma and taste/sensations from wine.

That’s really it with wine descriptors. No mystery at all. Grape varieties have their unique characteristics and so, one can classify them: Merlot often puts a cheery-like characteristic forward (and in many European style Merlot I smell oyster shells!); Sauvignon Blanc has grassy, pungent characteristics, and so on. Memorizing various characteristics is also part of the technique.

It is a down cycle. I’m tapped out because I’m in the middle of writing my third book. It is frying my brain…

Perhaps it’s just that you’re not looking at things and taking spare parts to create a unified whole.

I also think that sometimes there’s a “Groundhog Day” element to the online wine conversation, but at the same time I also realize that I go into a down cycle on blogging every couple of months and some time and a brief break will recharge the batteries.

It might be a down cycle.

Jeff