Some wines really can kick up a bit of a stink
GRAPEVINE by LIZ SAGUES
Smell, the experts often argue, can be even more important than taste in judging wine. Most drinkers probably wouldn't agree - after all, swallowing rather than sniffing is the purpose of pouring a glassful.
But if my experience is anything to go by, the more you try to evaluate what's in the glass from its scent, the better your sense of smell becomes, for everything else as well as wine. And there is a particular satisfaction in identifying specific aromas wafting from a glass.
I can still remember the time and place when I first encountered that green gooseberry scent so often talked about in New Zealand sauvignon blanc. Then there's been cinnamon, cigar boxes, dairy toffee, marmalade, vanilla ice-cream and an infinite host more, some of which I'd rather not encounter again.
My nose was certainly in good form at Sainsbury's 2006 summer tasting, among the on-line only wines especially.
"Fermenting grass - just like the smell from a compost bin," read my note on Clearwater sauvignon 2004 (£11), a much more enjoyably drinkable Kiwi expression of the grape than that description might indicate.
Another scented southern hemisphere white, from Australia this time, is the leafy, grassy Skuttlebutt sauvignon/semillon/
chardonnay 2005 (£8), while, still with on-line wines, among the reds there are ripe cherries on the Tasmanian Ninth Island pinot noir 2005 (£9).
Fragrant bottles in stores include the generously clove-scented Taste the Difference Barossa shiraz 2004 (£7), Dr Loosen Graacher Himmelreich riesling kabinett 2004, which has classic Mosel minerals plus lemons and much more, and Boschendal shiraz 2002 (£7), where I noticed leather and a fellow-taster less flatteringly said it reminded him of a piggery.
There are smoke and cherry stones on the lovely Barbera d'Alba Fontanelle 2005 (£8.50), green peppers on the good-value Los Robles Fairtrade carmenere 2005 (three-litre bag in box, £16), and new-mown grass on Porcupine Ridge cabernet sauvignon 2005 (£7), a South African red which unlike many of its compatriots thankfully doesn't have the slightest whiff of burnt rubber.
Some scents were less appealing - wine gums on an organic Valpolicella, bananas on a Beaujolais Villages and a South African pinotage, a touch of nail varnish on a southern French shiraz, for example. Plus a few more odours best not mentioned in a family newspaper.
And just to make the point that it's not just Sainsbury's which has interestingly perfumed wines, here are a couple more I've enjoyed at other tastings: Chat en Oeuf Cotes du Ventoux 2003 (Morrisons, £5), which is redolent of the herbs of the southern French hills from which it comes, and the intriguing and delicious Collioure Cornet Blanc 2005 (major M&S stores, including Marble Arch, £10) where there's a smoky edge to the fruit from a bouquet of different grapes.
But whether you choose these or any other wines, swirl the glass, take a big sniff and let the scents develop before the swallowing begins.
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