Le Nez du Vin wine aromas

[Ghandih]

All,

I am frustrated by my inability to identify recognisable aromas in port (and other wines) reliably, and am considering whether a box of smells might help me.

Le Nez du Vin retail a kit of 54 aromas (*) for white and red wines (see http://www.nezduvin.co.uk/nezduvin_54.htm) for around £200. Various reviews of the thing seem to suggest the kit includes instructions for some sort of game to help train the nostrils, and it all seems rather jolly. Apart from the £200 bit, which is steep.

They also separate do 12-smell kits for red and for white wines, but I don't think they're broad enough. Particularly interestingly, they also do a 12-smell 'off-odours' kit, which might be especially useful in learning to pick slightly off wines. The good thing about that beastie is that, if it did prove pretty much useless, at least you get a phial of 'rotten egg' smells to drip in your pal's car.

Anyway, unsurprisingly, my question is, have any of you good port drinking folk come across any of these smelly kits, and, if so:
- are they any good (...when new)?
- do they last a decent amount of time?
- do you think they might be value for money??

Actual experience is preferred, of course, but those of you who, like me, have never come across one of these kits, please feel free to opine on how good you reckon they might be...

Cheers,


Ghandih


(*) The 54 aromas are:
Lemon, Grapefruit, Orange, Pineapple, Banana, Lychee, Melon, Muscat, Apple, Pear,Quince, Strawberry, Raspberry, Redcurrant, Blackcurrant, Bilberry, Blackberry, Cherry, Apricot, Peach, Almond, Prune, Walnut, Hawthorn, Acacia, Linden, Honey, Rose, Violet, Greenpepper, Mushroom, Truffle, Yeast, Cedar, Pine, Liquorice, Blackcurrant Bud, Cut Hay, Thyme, Vanilla, Cinnamon, Clove, Pepper, Saffron, Leather, Musk, Butter, Toasted Bread, Roasted Almonds,Roasted Hazelnuts, Caramel, Coffee, Dark Chocolate, Smoked

[DRT]

Ghhhhhhdani,

I have never come across these kits but the logic seems sound.

However, I can live with my own limited port taste vocab which is almost entirely limited to:

• Fruity
• Hot
• Black Fruit
• Red Fruit
• Mint
• Coffee (only when KillerB is around)
• Raspberry
• Blackcurrant
• Cherry
• Cherry Truffle
• Strawberry Cheescake
• Liquorice
• Burnt Sugar
• Toffee

I can honestly say that I have never tasted Mushroom or Green Pepper in a glass of port but I have shared some port with a nice man named Linden, although I can't remember what he smells like.

Derek

[Axel P]

My wife gave me the nez du vin (the 12 reds and the 12 whites) for my birthday about 6 to 7 years ago. They are fairly what you expect, but certainly not cheap. Ive seen another brand, cheaper but rubbish, so I guess you have to pay the price, if you intend to get this.

From my experience it worked outstandingly well. The ability of identifying an odor is definitely subject to training, which we normally dont do too often, because we get about 80% of our information with our eyes.

About 12 years ago, when I was in pilot training in Texas, Pepsi offered a Crystal Pepsi without color. So I bought a palette of these and brought them home to Germany. Although 99% identically smell- and tastewise no one of my relatives or friends was able to id the drink because the colour was missing.

I used to practise with these smells quite a lot and it is enormous fun when you are with your kids (they do have a very good ability to identify odors).

Axel

[KillerB]

Somebody forgot 'Chocolate'

[Alex Bridgeman]

However, I can live with my own limited port taste vocab which is almost entirely limited to:

• Fruity
• Hot
• Black Fruit
• Red Fruit
• Mint
• Coffee (only when KillerB is around)
• Raspberry
• Blackcurrant
• Cherry
• Cherry Truffle
• Strawberry Cheescake
• Liquorice
• Burnt Sugar
• Toffee

Derek is being slightly unfair to himself. I have heard him use at least two other terms when tasting / drinking with him and - if fact - he used both at the 1966 horizontal.

The first was "Smells like port to me", so this should be added to his list above.

The second was "Smells like Dow" as he thrust his glass under Julian's nose to demonstrate the subtle nuances associated with Dow's ports as distinct from the ports of the other producers which we had that night.


Slightly more seriously, I have used these sorts of kits in the past at Vinopolis in London. When I went there many years ago, they had a series of displays where there was a description of a particular wine (for example, describing a new world Sauvignon Blanc as typically smelling of gooseberries and lemon grass. They then gave you a few lift-up flaps to sniff of gooseberries and lemon grass and then three wines. The idea was to sniff the three wines and tell which was the SB. It was fun and educational.

I suspect that although the £200 is a little steep, it is probably a very useful little kit which can be used (a) to educate your sense of smell and (b) to entertain and challenge wine-interested friends when they visit with games like those I played at Vinopolis.

Alex

[robson]

HI Ghandi
I bought the Nez du Vin for my husband last Christmas, we have had bags of fun with it and although it was he who wanted to improve his wine recognition and tasting skills we are now both able to spot the fruit and spice in most wines. there is a kit called new oak aromas with the barrel aging aromas which might be good when sniffing for port. I got my kit from http://www.nezduvin.co.uk/nezduvin_54.htm as a special offer with the 12 faults and 12 new oak aromas. The new oak aromas are:
Oak, Green Wood, Coconut, Clove, Vanilla Pod, Woody-Spicy, New Leather, Pharmaceutical Notes, Toast, Furfural, Liquorice, Smoky.
" Oak Barrels allow slow oygenation of wine and benefit its structure..In many cases, the influence of oak on a wine's flavour is probably as important as the grape themselves." Beverley Blanning MW

[g-man]

HI Ghandi
I bought the Nez du Vin for my husband last Christmas, we have had bags of fun with it and although it was he who wanted to improve his wine recognition and tasting skills we are now both able to spot the fruit and spice in most wines. there is a kit called new oak aromas with the barrel aging aromas which might be good when sniffing for port. I got my kit from http://www.nezduvin.co.uk/nezduvin_54.htm as a special offer with the 12 faults and 12 new oak aromas. The new oak aromas are:
Oak, Green Wood, Coconut, Clove, Vanilla Pod, Woody-Spicy, New Leather, Pharmaceutical Notes, Toast, Furfural, Liquorice, Smoky.
" Oak Barrels allow slow oygenation of wine and benefit its structure..In many cases, the influence of oak on a wine's flavour is probably as important as the grape themselves." Beverley Blanning MW

Do the new kits offer port wine specific smells instead of the old Red/white smells?

would be interested to find out.

[Glenn E.]

there is a kit called new oak aromas with the barrel aging aromas which might be good when sniffing for port.

Port is aged in neutral oak casks, some of which are hundreds of years old. These casks are used specifically because they impart very little, if any, of the attributes that one might normally find in wine that has been aged in new oak.

I think that some of the characteristics listed there as coming from new oak aren't actually coming from the oak at all, but simply from slow oxidation or sometimes the fruit itself. Vanilla and leather are both pretty common in very old tawny Ports. Coconut isn't unheard of. Clove and other sweet spices show up fairly frequently as well. Coffee and/or Toffee are very similar to toast, and they can all be lumped together under "notes of torrefaction."

[Cynthia J]

I have a Nez du Vin - the 54 bottle set - and I have to say I find the scents consistently a bit metallic. I may have had a duff kit, but... As it happens, I am also interested in aromatherapy and have a pretty full set of essential oils - floral and herbal oils and not necessarily wine related! On several occasions I have compared the Nez du Vin with the aromatherapy oil and with the real thing - e.g. a cut lemon, or violets from the garden, and the aromatherapy oils were consistently truer to the real thing than the Nez. I tried this one night with a Douro winemaker friend, and he agreed, the Nez was a bit funky. Where I had no oil, but compared Nez with e.g. fresh mashed currants or gooseberries, we again found the Nez aromas quite off.

So, while the kit beats nothing (particularly for city dwellers), I would strongly recommend you make it a habit to just stop and smell the roses... currants... violets... mandarins... esteva... whatever every chance you get.

[g-man]

So, while the kit beats nothing (particularly for city dwellers), I would strongly recommend you make it a habit to just stop and smell the roses... currants... violets... mandarins... esteva... whatever every chance you get.

ahh, that muggy ny summer air where evertyhing smells of car fumes and dog poo

[djewesbury]

That's extremely interesting Cynthia.. I'm about to start another thread on a similar topic (growing a 'port garden').. Perhaps you'd have some thoughts that would be apposite there also.

[Cynthia J]

smells of car fumes and dog poo

That would be cheap Merlot... Car fumes + cat piss = sauvignon blanc...

[g-man]

smells of car fumes and dog poo

That would be cheap Merlot... Car fumes + cat piss = sauvignon blanc...

or about anything from new zealand