Baseball aficionados would tell you that 60 percent of the game is about pitching; others would say that pitching represents more than that.
To create a wine phrase parallel to this, it might be said that 60 percent or more of a wine is based on its aroma. For serious wine lovers, the enjoyment of any wine is as much if not more in what it smells like; taste is simply a bonus.
But the aroma of anything that we smell is an extraordinarily complicated subject that eventually comes down to chemistry, most of which is not very interesting to people who are simply looking to grab a glass of something to go with their hamburger, salmon, or pizza.
What makes this so complicated includes how the wine was treated in the winery, how the grapes were grown, where they came from, what the weather pattern was like in the year they were harvested, and at least a dozen other impacts.
The most popular white wine in America today is chardonnay. Most winemakers say this grape is one of the least interesting in its aroma profile. Winemakers often call this a blank canvas. In most cases, it offers delicate citrus aromas that can be faintly tropical.
One major reason that Americans like chardonnay so much is that it can be made rather soft and appealing, and its aroma is somewhat easy to understand.
Riesling, by contrast, has a more obvious aroma that starts with apples, Asian pears, and subtle spices and can include such exotic elements as ginger, peach, nutmeg, honey, petroleum (!), and guava.
One of the most complicated aromas in fine wines is in sauvignon blanc, which is one of the few popular grapes that display what scientists called thiols (or methyl mercaptans).
Jamie Goode, who has a doctorate in plant biology, published a book in 2012 that explained that the human nose is so sensitive that it can pick up thiols in sauvignon blanc that can only be measured in nanograms. They are difficult to analyze because the equipment needs to be so sophisticated.
Mr. Goode wrote that the importance of thiols in sauvignon blanc should not be underestimated. In particular, sauvignon blanc from New Zealand has a plethora of thiols, which most Americans appreciate.
We sense the aromatics in sauvignon blanc more readily than with other grapes. That allows people who understand this wine to gain a great appreciation of all of its different and complex forms, from cool/cold regions, such as New Zealand, all the way to warmer sites, where the aromatics are significantly different.
One of the most easily identifiable wines by aroma alone is gewurztraminer, which emanates from Northern Europe, and in the United States produces wines that can be tremendously exotic with aromatics of gardenia, carnations, and other spiced elements.
Red wines also have unique aromatic elements, but many of them are harder to define because most red wines are aged in oak barrels, which gives them a kind of woody aromatic.
The difference between European-styled cabernet-based reds such as Bordeaux (pyrazines or bell peppers) and pinot noir (beets, rose petals) is widely understood by wine lovers.
Two grapes that can display subtle aromatics of black pepper include gamay noir and Syrah, but the black pepper only shows up in grapes that were grown in cold regions. Both grapes do extremely well in New Zealand, although not very many examples are exported to the United States.
The aromatics in wine tend to be volatile in the sense that once the bottle has been opened, they begin to change slightly and dissipate. The best way to retain those aromatics is to recork the bottle soon after a few glasses have been poured.
Once a fine wine has been poured into a wine glass, swirling it will help to improve the aromatics for a certain length of time. However, too long in the glass might actually harm the aroma and impair its taste.
