As I am slowly writing down a few tasting notes, I thought I would give you my take on tasting in general.

Imagine you are in a very large cathedral listening to the most amazing choir singing a well known piece of music. That is much how odour works (no, I am not referring to the underarm discipline of the choir). Smell is made up of a mind boggling amount of minuscule individual chemical blobs that combine together in beautiful harmony inside the nose (rather than the ear). When we add that effect to the basic senses derived from the tongue (sweet, sour, salty, bitter, dryness and so on), we end up with the 'taste' word we use to recognise food and drink. A sort of sensory fingerprint we know and love.

That's why when you drink wine it tastes...well....like wine of course.

What about all the other weird individual flavours people detect in wine, apart from 'wine flavour'.

To hark (sorry) back to the choir analogy, the next you time hear them perform the same piece of music there is a new conductor. The music has different emphasis. You can pick out subtle changes.

Wine is exactly like that. Some chemical blobs may develop more than others during the wine making and maturing process (including cellaring). The individual blobs are often sometimes exactly the same chemical make up as the ones that for example give butter its flavour. So when some pretentious wine buff says 'oh, it's so buttery', it technically probably is, except I would like to see him spread that on his toast in the morning.

The glass of alcoholic grape juice still tastes like wine, it's just that those buttery bits are singing a bit louder.

The problem with wine tasting charts and studied expectations is that tasters can reel off the premeditated weird and wonderful taste trivia, without making the effort to actually taste it. A security blanket in case the wrong floral comparison is plucked from the air. Pre-primed suggestions can also confuse the senses and introduce imaginary flavour friends that do not exist.

On the other hand it is tough to distinguish taste blindfolded. We are not talking about the Pepsi Challenge here. I have seen people struggle to distinguish apple from orange juice. Without any visual pointers wine tasting can be tricky, and so experience combined with a great palate are the major prerequisites.

Lots emphasis is made on the subtle odour compounds (aroma and bouquet) in wine, and how complex it is, so much so that we almost forget that food stuffs in general can also have incredibly complex aromatic qualities. For example the common tomato has around 400 volatile aromas (those chemical blobs I am talking about), 30 of which are key to its flavour. You can find flavours like horseradish in a tomato, but you rarely get a tomato buff at the dinner table having a good sniff. Chocolate is another with depth, but admittedly you are more likely to come across the odd chocolate connoisseur happily revealing aromas like pepper, blueberry and kumquat. And of course there is coffee, that is another blog.

Wine has its special appeal because 'aroma' (the chemical blobs present in the grapes before they are made into wine) is enhanced as the wine is made and aged, adding 'bouquet' , which basically means more smells. This exciting changing nature of a wine gives a thrill to enthusiasts.

Where there was once burnt toast there is now butter to calm it.

So applying all this new found odour knowledge, here is the perfect glass of red wine for those of you who do not drink alcohol or are on a diet -

Pour one glass of complex Claret, then make a cup of ordinary breakfast tea (no milk). Add a tiny amount of sugar to the tea, stir and wait for it to cool to room temperature. Decant your tea into another similar wine glass. Close your eyes. Sniff your glass of Claret with gusto (like you are clearing your nasal passages with a vapour inhaler) and then sip your tea.

Hey presto a nice tannic Bordeaux. Enjoy.

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