Smell is everything?

I used to think aromatics were everything with wine. But like all things, my perspective has changed. Perhaps it is a function of age as our olfactory sense diminishes with time. I sometimes also think that women have the best olfactory sense. Don't believe me? Just check out Katherine Cole's column for the Oregonian. Talk about Le Nez. I hope someday she sits down with with one of my Pinot Noir's and puts her nose to it, so to speak.

While it makes for great reading, wine is more and more about the palate to me. I need to sense the wine especially in the mid palate and finish. There is a fifth taste on the palate called umami and some wines give me an impression of this taste, though it is created by tannin and acid balance, not the chemical component of the umami taste. It is almost a savory taste you sense on the mid part of the palate. Increasingly, I am under the impression that this sense separates the merely good wines, from great wines.

Where does it come from? Well I think it comes from the vineyard. Sites with controlled vigor produce more concentrated wines and contribute to this impression on the mid palate. To me these are the most satisfying wines. Moreover, they may not be the ones that reveal themselves on the first taste. Generally people are pulled in by the aromatics long before the taste. But on drinking more than a taste, sitting with a glass, a bottle, the wine always reveals itself for what it is. The best wines make an undeniable impression on the mid palate and finish. Well at least that is my definition of great wine.

I had a local retailer tell me recently after trying a bottle of my 2006 Lenné Estate Pinot Noir, that he couldn't stop drinking it. I think the reason is that satisfying, almost savory quality on the mid palate. I get that impression from another wine I have recently had a fair amount of, the 2005 Yakima Red from Owen Roe. This is a wine that grows on me each time I taste it. It is maybe one of the most structured wines from Owen Roe, meaning it has a fair amount of tannin, but in a good way, a way that adds to the wine's richness. I can't wait to taste this wine in 10 years, as I think it has the stuffing to last.

Two other wines which I have liked very much lately, perhaps not as much of that mid palate quality, but nice wines nonetheless are the 2005 Abeja Cabernet Sauvignon from Walla Walla and the 2005 Siltstone Guadalupe Pinot Noir. The Abeja wine has some interesting smoky, almost chocolate like aromas and a soft, supple texture. The Siltstone is from a vineyard I pass everyday and has great aromatics, full of black and red fruit with a very fine tannin structure leaving the impression of velvet.