The involved process of thoroughly smelling and tasting a wine is one reason why aficionados love the stuff and a big reason that novices tend to be intimidated. Some people seem to regard wine almost as an intellectual pursuit. Others just like the taste or want to get drunk.

On one hand it seems ludicrous to spend so long detecting every nuance of flavor in a wine. After all, when a plate of food arrives in a restaurant we don’t sit for five minutes smelling it to try to detect every ingredient and how they were cooked. Then again, there is probably no other drinkable liquid on earth that can pack as many complex aromas and flavors into a glass as wine, and certainly no other food product that can reflect so completely the place from which it came.

With the magic worked by winemakers, simple grape juice can be transformed into wines that mimic the smells and tastes of a remarkable range of fruits, vegetables, and countless other substances. From a scientific point of view, however, there’s no magic involved--grapes actually contain many of the same chemicals that give other fruits and vegetables their distinctive smells. Wine reviews often read like a shopping list for the produce department at a local supermarket.

Wine appreciation cannot be taught. It has to be learned. One reason that many people are confused by those slightly pretentious-sounding reviews is that they cannot actually recognize many of the smells or tastes being referred to. Someone who has never smoked a cigar, for example, is not gong to understand what a reviewer is referring to when he describes a cabernet sauvignon as having an aroma of “cigar box.” Everyone knows what chocolate tastes and smells like, though, so a “chocolaty” cabernet will instantly ring a bell in most people’s minds, even if it might take a few goes to single out that aroma from the cornucopia of smells wafting from the glass.

The sort of diverse smell and flavor database that critics use takes time (and an extremely varied diet) to develop. Patience is the best way to learn--it takes a while to develop a palate that can detect the subtle nuances of wine and can take years to build up a tasting memory borad enough to recognize and describe wines and their aromas.

When in doubt simply listen to how everyone else describes the wine, or just ask whoever is pouring the wine at a winery what exactly you are supposed to be smelling or tasting. On a few occasions you might not get much help from a harried staffer, but usually they are happy to give a quick description.

Alternatively, an intensive wine-tasting course (see the Opportunities for Study section in the book) can shorten the process of learning all the smells and tastes by setting out every imaginable fruit, vegetable, and other organic substance in dishes, allowing students to directly match aromas from the foods to the aromas in wines (something you can also do at home with whatever you have in your kitchen).

Of course, the world of smells and tastes is unique to each individual. There are some fairly standard categories of the basic flavors and aromas of wines. Beyond them, it’s fine to make up your own comparisons and the more recognizable they are the better. For fun, make up your own personal wine descriptions every day--pinot noir can sometimes smell a little like a traffic jam on the St. Helena Highway on a hot summer afternoon, for example. Alternatively, just ignore all the fancy words and simply say “it smells and tastes good.” Just promise never use the non-descript word “Yummy”.

Recognizing smells is always easier than naming them, which is why tasting wine is more fun when you know what you’re supposed to be smelling. The wine’s label or a winery’s description will often include a list of aromas the winemaker has identified in the wine but the ultimate tool to train yourself to recognize aromas is something called the Aroma Wheel.

An educator at the University of California at Davis created the Aroma Wheel and even professionals use it when describing wines. It broadly categorizes aromas and bouquets, then subcategorizes them and gives specific examples. If you smell something fruity, for example, the wheel will break down fruity smells into categories such as citrus, berry, and tropical fruit, then break each of those subcategories down further into examples of specific fruits.

Aroma Wheels are often sold among the wine paraphernalia in the tasting rooms of large wineries but can also be bought online (along with Aroma Wheel T-shirts for those who live for wine) at www.winearomawheel.com. The website also includes information on how to use the wheel.