The Wine Aroma Matrix has a Fruit & Floral chart as well as an Earth & Spice chart designed to help identify specific wine aromas by combining the use of our human visual and olfactory senses (and memories). When using the Fruit & Floral matrix chart you take advantage of our natural ability to recall the color of fruits, and flowers. For example, after smelling the wine’s aroma – if you identify that the wine seems to contain the aroma of Red fruit you then go to the Red color row on the Fruit & Floral matrix chart and follow that row across while reviewing the aromas for a match.
The same sequence is used with the matrix chart for Earth & Spice aromas. For example if you’ve identified that the aroma of a wine seems to contain a Brown spice aroma you go to the Brown color row on the Earth & Spice matrix chart and follow that row across while reviewing the aromas for a match.
The Wine Aroma Matrix was created based on repeated aromatic observations of red, black, and blue fruit aromas while tasting red wines. The process of using two or more human senses at the same time is referred to as “cross-modal association”. Our natural ability to experience “color impressions” as a result of smelling fruit, spice, floral, or earth in wine aromas results from the cross-modal association that happens between our vision and olfactory senses. Using visual and olfactory senses together makes it easier to recall and identify specific wine aromas.
Beyond the Wine Aroma Wheel – More of the story behind the Wine Aroma Matrix
