The strange thing is, I want to talk about wine actually. 🙂
Yesterday I was lucky (well, I consider that luck) to try 3 rather expensive wines, all of which were good and all of which would work great as perfume drydowns.
But the third one we tried, said on the bottle it should be decanted, and once we poured it into glasses after decanting, I noticed a rather interesting smell. A manure type of one. 😀
Honestly, I never thought I would smell a wine with such a note and consider it a more interesting aspect of the wine.
I know it probably sounds disgusting but the wine smelled reminiscent of it, not really as manure. I have to admit, smelling it and identifying it made me feel rather good about my nose. 2 years ago, I don’t think I would have been able to distinguish it. And I know the only reason I was able to now was because I’ve been smelling perfumes every day for years now.
Btw, decanting helped lose that particular note (we guessed that was why it was recommended).
UPDATE:
Here are the wines in the order we tried them
1. Carmelo Ortega: Saxa Loquuntur Tres 2008 (DOC Rioja)
2. Casato dei Medici Riccardi: Sangiovese Shiraz 2008
3. Le Cloitre du Chateau Priure-Lichine 2007, Bordeaux (Margaux)
Tagged: I've been thinking, perfume thoughts, wine
All I am - a redhead 
I do not think I’ve ever come across that particular note in wines (and I’ve done a lot of
testingtasting in the recent five years) but, in general, I think that most wines benefit from some oxidation.I think I can smell more nuances in wines because I keep training my nose with perfumes and I’m better with perfumes because I’m getting a cross-training with wines (where my sense of smell is reinforced by the taste).
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Undina, that’s one of the things that works in wine’s favour – the smell is underscored with taste, although they don’t always mesh (that has been my experience). And sometimes, that makes it more difficult for me, to consider both together as I either smell or taste, I can’t seem to make it into one experience. 🙂
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Since I taste wines 4-5 times a year (I’m talking mostly about California wines, I prefer those to French or Italian), I have many different experiences. Smell is what most of expensive wineries learned how to make 😉 – well, at least they make smells that I love. Then comes taste (which is subjective, as you understand, when it comes to well-made wines). And when those two come together, I buy a case 😉
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For more of the connections between wine and perfume, see the recent post about Le Nez du Vin on Aphrodesia’s Facebook page.
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Thanks John, I’m off to check it out. 🙂
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That’s exciting that you got to try those special wines and that you have noticed your sense of smell developing further. Congrats, Ines!
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Thank you James. 😀 I’m all for developing that particular sense more. 😉
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Well done! And now I want to know what these wines were exactly, grapes and all…
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Vanessa, I’ll be able to get that information this evening. 🙂
But that last one didn’t have the information on the grapes which I found very strange – and I couldn’t gather it from the name either.
The first one was a Spanish one, mix of 3 varieties, the second one was Shiraz.
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That’s awesome, Ines! I just recently told Lavanya something similar: Mark started collecting single-malt scotches this past winter, and in one of them, I smelled a banana note I thought was quite distinct. He didn’t agree at all, so we let the matter go. A few weeks later, he called me over to his computer, because he was looking up various scotch’s, and he said, “You were right.” The description talked about this particular scotch’s banana and fig notes. I was pretty stoked!
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Bravo Suzanne! 🙂
Well, not to be mean to Mark, but I believe women can taste better than men. At least from my experience so far. I guess it’s still a matter of how much one is prone to trying and experimenting.
I admit though, I love whisky but my taste hasn’t developed so far as to be able to tell the notes – I can tell when there’s smoke present (of course) and can taste the differences but cannot describe them.
But the banana/fig scotch sounds great! 🙂
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A couple of years ago at the whiskey tasting even I tried some super-limited-sold-out whiskey with a very pronounced banana taste. I was so amazed that I tried to find it afterwards but, as I said, it was a “super-limited-sold-out” one. In the one that you’ve tried, was it just a smell or a taste as well?
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Hi Undina. It was Glenfiddich 21 Year-Old Gran Reserve. The banana note was a smell for me, not a taste (I don’t care for the taste of scotch so it’s rare for me to sip one). The Glenfiddich 21 is aged in a rum cask, so it’s not surprising that it has a banana note, but when I smelled it, I had no knowledge of this: I was smelling it blind, so to speak.
This is a pricey scotch but not one of those “super-limited-sold-out” editions. 🙂
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Great! Wine tasting and perfume do have a lot in common (I’m working on a post on chocolate tasting for my blog right now 😉 ). As wine ages they go from having mostly vegetal notes (as in berry, fruits etc) toward more animal ones (leather, salami, manure, stables etc). But this varies between grape varities. Also the tannins (the stuff that make newer wines blue hued) clump together and end up as sediment on the bottom and the rest of the wine becomes more brown. So the last wine you tried probably was an older one 🙂
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Oooh, looking forward to that particular post Sigrun. 🙂
I feel ashamed not I didn’t remember the wines better, but I do think the last one was an older one as it said on the label that perfect time to drink it after it matured was from 2013-2020.
Seems we barely made it. 😉
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Very interesting. I’d love to know which wines they were. x
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BT, I will definitely get the information on those bottles and add them to the post. 🙂
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Excellent, Ines! All that perfume smelling *does* pay off eventually! 😉
I look forward to hearing which wines they were too.
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Eventually. 😉
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The jokes running through my head….
Portia xx
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😀 I wish I knew…
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The few times I have inhaled the manure note the wine has been an amazing French one, from the same area, usually from a collector’s cellar. Was odd to me too but I search for it now. What a lovely day you just enjoyed. Scent, taste, experience, education and a bit of puzzlement. And then a great story to write.
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Jordan, I admit, I will be looking for that note again now. 🙂
and, yes, the day was really a lovely one – filled with good food, good company, good wine and laughter. 🙂
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Dear Ines
What a lovely discovery – or pair of discoveries – both the wine and your increased olfactory competence.
I do hope you will be putting both to even more good use in the future!
Yours ever
The Perfumed Dandy
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I hope so too Perfume Dandy. 🙂
(as I seem to be a bit lazy in that regard lately…)
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That hint of “barnyard” is quite common in Corbieres wines. It takes some getting used to, but for me they are very high on my top 5 favorite wines!
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Natalie thanks for the information. 🙂
I don’t think I ever tried a Corbieres wine (now I know what to look for next time I’m wine shopping).
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