Wine Products

The BEST Way to Train your Nose

Want to know my dirty little secret? ………..

I have a terrible sense of smell. I mean, I-could-stand-in-a-room-with-a-week-old-dead-body-and-not-be-bothered terrible.

Now, for any of you who know what I do for a full time job, this works in my favour! But not so much for my love of wine.

The thing is, if I’m not actively sniffing for something, it’s default mode is “off”.

This means that when I first started trying to pick out aromas in wine, I barely had any reference library of smells to draw from. Even foods I’ve eaten my whole life, but never bothered to really *smell*.

And I’m definitely not bold enough to go around the supermarket sniffing all the fruit before putting it back, so I was left with a conundrum. How could I get better at blind tasting wine if I didn’t know what anything smelled like?

Enter “Le Nez du Vin”.

I was browsing through articles on improving my blind tasting when I saw a recommendation for this product. But it wasn’t very detailed and I was left with no idea what it actually was. All I knew from the article was that the author considered it “the gold standard”.

So I googled.

And what I found was a terrible-sniffers dream.

There are a range of size options, but I went for the big guns. Fifty-four different aromas, for white wines and red wines, from the grapes, the use of oak, and aging, all beautifully packaged up for my little nose to sniff.

I couldn’t believe it. It was *exactly* what I needed to expand my library of smells. AND I could go back and reference it whenever I needed, should memory alone not be enough.

I had to have it! But my frugal brain disagreed. Although entirely reasonable based on the quality and size of the product, the price tag was out of the range of what I was willing to spend on my wine journey at the time.

So for the time being, I walked away.

Nearly a year passed, and my birthday and Christmas started creeping up. I started thinking about what I should ask for.

At that time, I had a secure job that allowed me to afford most of what I wanted for myself, so my list wasn’t very long. But that same job was also causing me to feel seriously burnt out, and I had thrown myself full throttle into my wine education as a distraction method.

I decided that as a gift to myself, I would either buy the Le Nez kit, or take the WSET Level 1 course (similar price range).

I settled on the course because it just so happened to be running the same weekend as my birthday, but promised myself I would buy the Le Nez kit next year.

Well, as luck would have it, my mother decided to fly out for my birthday weekend and do the course with me… and then insisted on paying for the whole thing! Thanks Mom!

Suddenly that extra money was burning a whole in my pocket and Le Nez was calling my name. Merry Christmas, me!

When it arrived, I was gob-smacked by how gorgeous it was. Try as I might, words just don’t do it justice.

Smooth red fabric covers the classy exterior design.

It opens up into a beautiful lay-flat case that contains everything you need to train your nose.

On left, a brief booklet explaining the kit and providing valuable information about the aromas themselves, as well as cards that match up to each vial so you can play a bit of trivia with them.

Then on the right are the vials themselves, all securely tucked into place and numbered so as not to immediately give their contents away.

I was so excited when I got it that I just had to show it off to my fiance. He, of course, thought I was a little nuts for being so excited about tiny bottles of scents.

But I quickly won him over as we played a round of “can you guess that smell?” We took turns selecting vials and seeing who could guess it correctly (or at least the closest – we were both pretty bad at it).

Now I rely heavily on my kit to help me train my nose.

If I am studying a particular grape varietal, I pull out all of the vials associated to that grape and spend a few seconds sniffing each one to try to commit them to memory.

When I am doing a tasting at home, I try to identify what I smell in the glass first and then cross-check it against the vials. Then I look up what other aromas are associated with that wine that I might be missing, sniff those vials, and see if I can find the same aromas in the glass.

Since beginning this practice, I have drastically improved my brain’s aroma library. Especially for smells I wouldn’t typically come across in real life, but can now identify solely because of this kit.

If you are a wine-lover, or know a wine-lover, this kit is an incredible gift that will be well worth the money as it proves to be a valuable resource for years to come.

And the best part is, if you are as hesitant as I was about taking the plunge, you can always start smaller with one of their other selections. There are kits specific to white wine aromas, red wine aromas, or even coffee or whisky aromas!

I promise you won’t be disappointed.

For a full set of 54 aromas like mine, click here. For a smaller starter set of 24, click here.

Or if you’re already a wine nerd wanting to expand your collection, click here for aromas of wine faults.

Do you have a Le Nez du Vin kit already, or something similar? What are your thoughts on training your nose? Let me know in the comments!