You are here: A roadmap for a wine-quality journey

Sometime in January of this year I wrote a post on balance as a measure of wine quality and, upon its completion, I realized that I had not previously defined wine quality, a situation which I sought to address with two subsequent posts.  Since that time the wine quality posts have taken on a life of their own and I have brought you, the reader, along on the ride.  You may be reassured to know that I do have a map (several, to be candid) and so I wanted to take the opportunity to show you from whence we came and where this trip will be going.  I did begin writing about quality before I had developed a proposed quality framework but we will make-believe that that was not the case and that the framework preceded any writing on the topic.  The framework that I proposed is shown below.

The broader conceptual quality arguments have been addressed in two posts to date:

• A framework for the assessment of wine quality: Defining the space
• Development of a framework for the assessment of wine quality

At the elemental level of the framework I have begun working on the intrinsic (in-the-glass) quality factors:

Palate

• Wine balance as a quality measure
• The role of acidity in wine balance
• The role of alcohol in wine balance
• Ameliorating alcohol-induced wine imbalance
• The role of tannins in wine balance
• Available mechanisms for ameliorating tannin-associated wine imbalance

Appearance

• Appearance as an indicator of wine quality

Nose

• Flavornet: A comprehensive source of wine odor descriptors
• Odor as an indicator of wine quality: Mapping the sources

In order to determine the role of odor in wine quality, I decided that I needed to track down each and every source of the odors that end up in a wine glass in order to understand each source's contribution.  The map of the sources is represented in the graphic below and is another layer of detail beneath the original wine quality framework. You know. Mise en abyme.

I decided to begin with the aroma contributors that were specific to the grape and this yielded yet another framework -- the elements of viticultural science -- which is itself reproduced below.

One post has been written to date against this framework:

• The science of viticulture: Climate and site selection

So you see.  You are here.  I will complete the elements of viticultural science, then the odor sources, and then get back to the completing our discourse on intrinsic wine quality.

Good luck.

© Wine -- Mise en abyme