REFERENCE
“It smells nice” is a start — but which nice? This wheel gives you the words: every common wine aroma grouped into families, and sorted by where it comes from — the grape, the winemaking, or the age.
Know what to open tonight — and never miss a wine at its peak.
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106
Tasting notes
8
Aroma families
3
Origins: grape · cellar · age
From the grape & fermentation
The scents the grape itself brings — fruit, flowers, fresh herbs, pepper, and the mineral edge of where it grew. These dominate young, unoaked wines.
The biggest family and the first thing most people notice — from zesty citrus in a cool white to jammy black fruit in a warm-climate red.
Where you'll meet it: Sauvignon Blanc (citrus), Pinot Noir (red fruit), Shiraz (black fruit)
Citrus
Orchard fruit
Red fruit
Black fruit
Tropical fruit
Perfumed, pretty notes — obvious in aromatic whites and a lift you'll catch in some reds.
Where you'll meet it: Gewürztraminer, Muscat, Viognier, Nebbiolo (rose)
Spring flowers
Perfumed flowers
Green, leafy, and savoury edges — from a whisper of fresh mint to the bell-pepper snap of an under-ripe Cabernet or Sauvignon Blanc.
Where you'll meet it: Sauvignon Blanc, Cabernet Franc, cool-climate Cabernet Sauvignon
Fresh herb
Green & vegetal
The 'sense of place' notes — cool stone, chalk, and soil that speak to where the grapes grew rather than to the fruit itself.
Where you'll meet it: Chablis (flint), Left-Bank Bordeaux (graphite), Sancerre (wet stone)
Mineral
Earth
Grape-given spice — the black-pepper crack of Syrah and the wild, scrubby herbs of a warm southern red. (Baking spice like clove and cinnamon comes from oak — see below.)
Where you'll meet it: Syrah / Shiraz (black pepper), Grenache & GSM blends (garrigue)
Peppery
Wild & savoury spice
From winemaking
Notes created after fermentation — the bread and cream of time on the lees or a malolactic softening, and the vanilla, spice, and toast a wine picks up from an oak barrel.
The savoury, creamy notes winemaking adds after fermentation — time on the spent yeast (lees) gives bread and pastry; a malolactic conversion softens sharp acidity into butter and cream.
Where you'll meet it: Champagne & traditional-method sparkling (brioche), oaked Chardonnay (butter)
Bready & lees
Creamy & dairy
Everything a barrel lends — sweet vanilla and coconut from the wood, warm baking spice, and the toast, smoke, and mocha of a charred cask. If a wine smells 'oaky,' this is where it lives.
Where you'll meet it: Oaked Chardonnay, Rioja, Napa Cabernet, many New-World reds
Sweet oak
Baking spice
Toast & smoke
From aging
What develops slowly with age in bottle or barrel — fresh fruit dries and deepens, and savoury, nutty, leathery, and honeyed notes emerge. The mark of a wine with years on it.
What years bring: fresh fruit dries to fig and raisin, and complex nutty, leathery, forest-floor, and honeyed notes emerge. The signature of an older wine.
Where you'll meet it: Aged Barolo & Rioja (leather, forest floor), mature Riesling (petrol), Tawny Port (nutty)
Dried & cooked fruit
Nutty
Savoury & forest floor
Development notes
The wheel follows the widely-taught tasting framework (the kind used in WSET's Systematic Approach to Tasting and Ann Noble's Wine Aroma Wheel): aromas are grouped into families and sorted by where they come from — the grape and fermentation (primary), winemaking (secondary), or aging (tertiary). Treat it as a vocabulary, not a rulebook: smelling is personal, the same wine reads differently to different people, and a handful of descriptors can plausibly arise from more than one source. Each descriptor here is filed under a single family so the guide stays easy to search. Last reviewed 2026-09-03.
Where a note comes from tells its story
Bright fresh fruit and flowers mean a young wine speaking with the grape's own voice. Vanilla and toast are the barrel, not the grape. And leather, fig, and forest floor are the slow gifts of age. Name the note, then ask where it came from — you'll learn how the wine was made and roughly how old it is.
Caught a scent and want to place it? Find the note below to see its family and where it comes from.
Beyond aroma
Aroma is only half of a tasting note — the rest is structure. See how wines line up from light to full-bodied, or from silky to grippy.
A wine flavor (or aroma) wheel is a chart that organises the scents and flavours you can find in wine into families — fruit, floral, herbal, oak, and so on — and breaks each into more specific notes. It gives beginners a vocabulary: instead of 'this smells nice,' you can work outward from a broad family like 'fruit' to 'red fruit' to 'cherry.' This guide adds one more layer — where each aroma comes from — so you also learn whether a note is the grape, the winemaking, or the age talking.
Start broad, then narrow. Is the main scent fruity, floral, herbal, earthy, or spicy? Then get specific: if it's fruit, is it fresh citrus, ripe stone fruit, or dark berries? Naming two or three notes is plenty. It also helps to ask where a note comes from — bright fresh fruit and flowers usually mean a young wine; vanilla and toast mean oak; leather, fig, and forest floor mean age. There are no wrong answers: the words are a tool to remember and compare wines, not a test.
Primary aromas come from the grape and fermentation — fruit, flowers, herbs, pepper, and minerality — and lead in young wines. Secondary aromas come from winemaking after fermentation: bread and cream from time on the yeast or a malolactic softening, and the vanilla, spice, and toast of an oak barrel. Tertiary aromas develop with age in bottle or barrel — dried fruit, nuts, leather, mushroom, and (in older Riesling) petrol. Sorting notes this way tells you a lot about how a wine was made and how old it is.
They're all part of the same family. When people call a wine 'oaky,' they mean the notes a barrel gives it: sweet vanilla, coconut, and caramel from the wood; warm baking spice like clove and cinnamon; and the toast, smoke, and mocha of a charred cask. Those aromas come from the winemaking, not the grape — which is why an unoaked version of the same wine won't show them.
Those are tertiary aromas — the flavours that develop as a wine ages. Fresh grape fruit slowly gives way to dried fruit, nuts, leather, tobacco, forest floor, and mushroom, while aged Riesling famously takes on a petrol or kerosene note. Far from a fault, they're a sign of a wine that has spent real time in the cellar; many collectors prize them.
Yes — and nothing but grapes (and yeast) is involved. The same natural aroma compounds found in cherries, roses, or black pepper occur in wine too, so your brain honestly recognises them. You're not imagining it, and you're not tasting added flavourings. Perception is personal, though: the same glass can read as raspberry to one person and cranberry to another, which is exactly why a shared vocabulary helps.
Know what to open tonight — and never miss a wine at its peak.
Save your tasting notes as you drink, and Saignée quietly builds your Palate from what you like — so the flavours you keep reaching for shape every suggestion.
Free Taster: up to 100 bottles · 20 AI scans · 10 pairings / month
Free forever · No credit card