The Categories of Italian Wine Aroma (And the Most Common Fragrances)

To truly appreciate your wine, you must first enjoy its bouquet.

How many times have you heard an Italian wine lover tell you how important it is to involve your nose in the drinking experience?

There’s a good reason for this.

The best wines are those that could be enjoyed by all of the senses. Obviously, the taste of the wine is what we concern ourselves with the most. But the visual impact of the wine and its colours also has an effect on us as we drink. And in terms of the aroma, experiencing the bouquet allows us to delve deeper into the various notes the wine has so we can prepare ourselves for the experience of drinking it.

So, it’s important to give your wine a good old sniff before you drink it.

But what exactly are you looking for when you do?

In this article, we’re going to dig into what an Italian wine bouquet is and some of the most common fragrances you can expect to come across.

The Three Categories of the Bouquet

It seems like it should be really simple.

Pour the wine, give it a sniff, and identify the flavours that hide within.

And while this is the basic action of experiencing a wine’s bouquet, there are actually more layers to the experience than this implies. The fact is that many wine bouquets are multi-layered, revealing more about what lies within the wine as you allow the aromas to envelop your senses. The true joy in smelling your wine is that it offers you a chance to develop a deeper understanding of what you’re about to experience before you actually drink.

So, we can split our wine aroma into three categories.

As you experience the bouquet, keep these categories in mind to ensure you get the full experience.

Category #1 – Primary Aromas

There are the aromas that come directly from the grape itself. As such, they’re usually the first aromas that you’re going to experience when you give your wine a sniff. These aromas will typically be of flowers, fruits, and herbs. They’re the most powerful notes in the bouquet and will give you an instant impression of what the tasting experience will be like.

In terms of wine chemistry, these aromas are compounds that essentially mimic the odour molecules of the fruits, flowers, and herbs that you can smell.

Category #2 – Secondary Aromas

Spend a little more time experiencing the bouquet and you’ll start moving beyond the primary aromas.

The secondary aromas are those imbued into the wine by the fermentation process. As such, a producer’s methods can have an impact on these aromas, which is why the same type of wine from two producers will often have differing bouquets.

The yeast used in fermentation often has the biggest impact here, with the specific ageing process also having an impact.

It’s with these aromas where you get some interesting variations from the fruits and flowers that you’d expect a grape to present. Secondary aromas tend to be fairly savoury, with mushroom, bacon, and even yoghurt being examples of these types of notes.

Category #3 – Tertiary Aromas

This is where we really start to veer away from the aromas that we’d expect from a grape.

Tertiary aromas come from all of the little idiosyncrasies involved in a specific winemaker’s process. For example, using oak vats to store the wine will have a different impact than using concrete or steel vats.

Tertiary aromas also come from your own actions with the wine. For example, opening a bottle exposes the wine to oxygen. These aromas are coaxed out as more oxygen reaches the wine. This is why so many people decant their wines before drinking. They’re giving oxygen a chance to do its work and enhance the bouquet.

Tertiary aromas tend to be light notes of things like nuts, vanilla, cocoa, caramel, and butterscotch. Those are just a few examples, as there are many interesting aromas that can come depending on the wine.

The Most Common Aromas You Will Experience

So, now we know that there are various levels to the bouquet, let’s visit some of the most common aromas that you’re likely to experience. Some of these have already been touched on, but it’s still worth visiting them.

Fruit is the first.

It’s also the most obvious. After all, grape is a fruit so it stands to reason that Italian wines will have heavily fruity flavours. But what may be surprising here is that the scent of grapes is rarely one that will dominate in a wine. In fact, you may not even detect a hint of grape at all. Instead, the types of fruity aromas you do experience change depending on the wine. For example, white wines will often feature citrus notes, with lemon, orange, and apple all tending to be prominent. Red wines tend to feature berry notes or notes of dark fruits.

Next up, we have floral notes.

Again, these can vary wildly depending on the type of wine. As a very general rule, white wines will often have sharper summery floral notes, with red wines having more complex notes. But again, the type of wine and the production methods will have an impact here.

Finally, we come to mineral notes.

These are becoming more common in Italian wines, especially from producers that focus on organic and biodynamic production. Mineral notes are expressions of the wine’s terroir. Think of them as the language of the land that the wine came from. Wines produced using more natural methods tend to exhibit more of these notes than other wines.

Beyond those three main types of aroma, you have a multitude of other notes that fall into the secondary and tertiary categories. These are the notes that you’re not likely to come across unless you really dedicate some time to exploring the wine that you’re drinking. However, taking that time will help you to gain a renewed appreciation for the effort that goes into the wines you enjoy.