Ann C. Noble
Encyclopedia
Ann C. Noble is a sensory
chemist
and retired professor from the University of California, Davis
. During her time at the UC Davis Department of Viticulture and Enology
, Noble invented the "Aroma Wheel" which is credited with enhancing the public understanding of wine tasting
and terminology. At the time of her hiring at UC-Davis in 1974, Noble was the first woman hired as a faculty member of the Viticulture department. Noble retired from Davis in 2002 and in 2003 was named Emeritus
Professor of Enology. Since retirement she has participated as a judge in the San Francisco Chronicle
Wine Competition
.
in Food science
from the University of Massachusetts
, Noble was hired by UC Davis in 1974 to work in their sensory research program. After studying the techniques and application of wine
tasting, Noble discovered that there was no objective framework or widely agreed upon terminology that a wine taster could use to describe things such as "earthy" aromas or the different smells of various fruit
s that can show up in a wine. In 1984, her research lead her to develop the "Aroma Wheel". Other research work went into how a wine's aroma and flavor can influence consumer
choices as well as how wine tasters perceive of astringency in wine.
The Aroma Wheel provides a visual graphic of the different categories and aroma components that one can encounter in wine. The terminology used is standardized for use by both professionals and amateur wine tasters. The aroma wheel does not contain terms to describe texture or mouthfeel
, however these are listed in the Australian "Mouthfeel Wheel". A separate Aroma Wheel has also been created for sparkling wine
. The wheel breaks down wine aromas into 12 basic categories and then further sub-divided into different aromas that can fall into those main categories.
The German Wine Institute has created a special German language
version of the Aroma Wheel meant to be specially adapted to German wine
s, with one wheel for white wines and one wheel for red wines. However, in the translation they removed the petroleum smell (and the entire "chemical" category) from the white wine wheel, despite the fact that mature Riesling
wines - Germany's signature grape variety - are the best-known examples of wines that show this aroma. It seems that the motive for omitting the reference to petroleum was that many consumers perceive it as a "negative" aroma. The Institute's move has been criticized by foreign experts on German wines.
Sensory analysis
Sensory analysis is a scientific discipline that applies principles of experimental design and statistical analysis to the use of human senses for the purposes of evaluating consumer products. The discipline requires panels of human assessors, on whom the products are tested, and recording the...
chemist
Chemist
A chemist is a scientist trained in the study of chemistry. Chemists study the composition of matter and its properties such as density and acidity. Chemists carefully describe the properties they study in terms of quantities, with detail on the level of molecules and their component atoms...
and retired professor from the University of California, Davis
University of California, Davis
The University of California, Davis is a public teaching and research university established in 1905 and located in Davis, California, USA. Spanning over , the campus is the largest within the University of California system and third largest by enrollment...
. During her time at the UC Davis Department of Viticulture and Enology
UC Davis Department of Viticulture and Enology
The Department of Viticulture and Enology at the University of California, Davis, located in Davis, California, offers undergraduate and graduate degrees in the areas of grape growing and wine making. Located just 45 minutes from Napa Wine Country the department has strong connections with wine...
, Noble invented the "Aroma Wheel" which is credited with enhancing the public understanding of wine tasting
Wine tasting
Wine tasting is the sensory examination and evaluation of wine. While the practice of wine tasting is as ancient as its production, a more formalized methodology has slowly become established from the 14th century onwards...
and terminology. At the time of her hiring at UC-Davis in 1974, Noble was the first woman hired as a faculty member of the Viticulture department. Noble retired from Davis in 2002 and in 2003 was named Emeritus
Emeritus
Emeritus is a post-positive adjective that is used to designate a retired professor, bishop, or other professional or as a title. The female equivalent emerita is also sometimes used.-History:...
Professor of Enology. Since retirement she has participated as a judge in the San Francisco Chronicle
San Francisco Chronicle
thumb|right|upright|The Chronicle Building following the [[1906 San Francisco earthquake|1906 earthquake]] and fireThe San Francisco Chronicle is a newspaper serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area of the U.S. state of California, but distributed throughout Northern and Central California,...
Wine Competition
Wine competition
A wine competition is an organized event in which trained judges or consumers competitively rate different vintages or bands of wine. There are two types of wine competitions, both of which use blind tasting of wine to prevent bias by the judges....
.
Career
After earning her Ph.D.Doctor of Philosophy
Doctor of Philosophy, abbreviated as Ph.D., PhD, D.Phil., or DPhil , in English-speaking countries, is a postgraduate academic degree awarded by universities...
in Food science
Food science
Food science is a study concerned with all technical aspects of foods, beginning with harvesting or slaughtering, and ending with its cooking and consumption, an ideology commonly referred to as "from field to fork"...
from the University of Massachusetts
University of Massachusetts
This article relates to the statewide university system. For the flagship campus often referred to as "UMass", see University of Massachusetts Amherst...
, Noble was hired by UC Davis in 1974 to work in their sensory research program. After studying the techniques and application of wine
Wine
Wine is an alcoholic beverage, made of fermented fruit juice, usually from grapes. The natural chemical balance of grapes lets them ferment without the addition of sugars, acids, enzymes, or other nutrients. Grape wine is produced by fermenting crushed grapes using various types of yeast. Yeast...
tasting, Noble discovered that there was no objective framework or widely agreed upon terminology that a wine taster could use to describe things such as "earthy" aromas or the different smells of various fruit
Fruit
In broad terms, a fruit is a structure of a plant that contains its seeds.The term has different meanings dependent on context. In non-technical usage, such as food preparation, fruit normally means the fleshy seed-associated structures of certain plants that are sweet and edible in the raw state,...
s that can show up in a wine. In 1984, her research lead her to develop the "Aroma Wheel". Other research work went into how a wine's aroma and flavor can influence consumer
Consumer
Consumer is a broad label for any individuals or households that use goods generated within the economy. The concept of a consumer occurs in different contexts, so that the usage and significance of the term may vary.-Economics and marketing:...
choices as well as how wine tasters perceive of astringency in wine.
The Aroma Wheel
Mouthfeel
Mouthfeel is a product's physical and chemical interaction in the mouth, an aspect of food rheology. It is a concept used in many areas related to the testing and evaluating of foodstuffs, such as wine-tasting and rheology. It is evaluated from initial perception on the palate, to first bite,...
, however these are listed in the Australian "Mouthfeel Wheel". A separate Aroma Wheel has also been created for sparkling wine
Sparkling wine
Sparkling wine is a wine with significant levels of carbon dioxide in it making it fizzy. The carbon dioxide may result from natural fermentation, either in a bottle, as with the méthode champenoise, in a large tank designed to withstand the pressures involved , or as a result of carbon dioxide...
. The wheel breaks down wine aromas into 12 basic categories and then further sub-divided into different aromas that can fall into those main categories.
- Chemical – Includes aromas like sulfurSulfurSulfur or sulphur is the chemical element with atomic number 16. In the periodic table it is represented by the symbol S. It is an abundant, multivalent non-metal. Under normal conditions, sulfur atoms form cyclic octatomic molecules with chemical formula S8. Elemental sulfur is a bright yellow...
and petroleumPetroleumPetroleum or crude oil is a naturally occurring, flammable liquid consisting of a complex mixture of hydrocarbons of various molecular weights and other liquid organic compounds, that are found in geologic formations beneath the Earth's surface. Petroleum is recovered mostly through oil drilling... - Pungent – Aromas like alcoholAlcoholIn chemistry, an alcohol is an organic compound in which the hydroxy functional group is bound to a carbon atom. In particular, this carbon center should be saturated, having single bonds to three other atoms....
- Oxidized – Aromas like acetaldehydeAcetaldehydeAcetaldehyde is an organic chemical compound with the formula CH3CHO or MeCHO. It is one of the most important aldehydes, occurring widely in nature and being produced on a large scale industrially. Acetaldehyde occurs naturally in coffee, bread, and ripe fruit, and is produced by plants as part...
- Microbiological – Aromas like yeastYeastYeasts are eukaryotic micro-organisms classified in the kingdom Fungi, with 1,500 species currently described estimated to be only 1% of all fungal species. Most reproduce asexually by mitosis, and many do so by an asymmetric division process called budding...
and lactic acidLactic acidLactic acid, also known as milk acid, is a chemical compound that plays a role in various biochemical processes and was first isolated in 1780 by the Swedish chemist Carl Wilhelm Scheele. Lactic acid is a carboxylic acid with the chemical formula C3H6O3... - Floral – Aromas like PelargoniumPelargoniumPelargonium is a genus of flowering plants which includes about 200 species of perennials, succulents, and shrubs, commonly known as scented geraniums or storksbills. Confusingly, Geranium is the correct botanical name of a separate genus of related plants often called Cranesbills. Both Geranium...
geraniums and linalool - Spicy – Aromas like licorice and aniseAniseAnise , Pimpinella anisum, also called aniseed, is a flowering plant in the family Apiaceae native to the eastern Mediterranean region and Southwest Asia. Its flavor resembles that of liquorice, fennel, and tarragon.- Biology :...
- Fruity – Aromas like blackcurrantBlackcurrantBlackcurrant, Ribes nigrum, is a species of Ribes berry native to central and northern Europe and northern Asia, and is a perennial....
and apricotApricotThe apricot, Prunus armeniaca, is a species of Prunus, classified with the plum in the subgenus Prunus. The native range is somewhat uncertain due to its extensive prehistoric cultivation.- Description :... - VegetativeVegetationVegetation is a general term for the plant life of a region; it refers to the ground cover provided by plants. It is a general term, without specific reference to particular taxa, life forms, structure, spatial extent, or any other specific botanical or geographic characteristics. It is broader...
– Aromas like eucalyptusEucalyptusEucalyptus is a diverse genus of flowering trees in the myrtle family, Myrtaceae. Members of the genus dominate the tree flora of Australia...
and artichokeArtichoke-Plants:* Globe artichoke, a partially edible perennial thistle originating in southern Europe around the Mediterranean* Jerusalem artichoke, a species of sunflower with an edible tuber... - NuttyNut (fruit)A nut is a hard-shelled fruit of some plants having an indehiscent seed. While a wide variety of dried seeds and fruits are called nuts in English, only a certain number of them are considered by biologists to be true nuts...
– Aromas like walnutWalnutJuglans is a plant genus of the family Juglandaceae, the seeds of which are known as walnuts. They are deciduous trees, 10–40 meters tall , with pinnate leaves 200–900 millimetres long , with 5–25 leaflets; the shoots have chambered pith, a character shared with the wingnuts , but not the hickories...
and hazelnutHazelnutA hazelnut is the nut of the hazel and is also known as a cob nut or filbert nut according to species. A cob is roughly spherical to oval, about 15–25 mm long and 10–15 mm in diameter, with an outer fibrous husk surrounding a smooth shell. A filbert is more elongated, being about twice... - Caramelized – Aromas like butterscotchButterscotchButterscotch is a type of confectionery whose primary ingredients are brown sugar and butter, although other ingredients such as corn syrup, cream, vanilla, and salt are part of some recipes...
and molassesMolassesMolasses is a viscous by-product of the processing of sugar cane, grapes or sugar beets into sugar. The word molasses comes from the Portuguese word melaço, which ultimately comes from mel, the Latin word for "honey". The quality of molasses depends on the maturity of the sugar cane or sugar beet,... - WoodWoodWood is a hard, fibrous tissue found in many trees. It has been used for hundreds of thousands of years for both fuel and as a construction material. It is an organic material, a natural composite of cellulose fibers embedded in a matrix of lignin which resists compression...
y – Aromas often imparted by oak like vanillaVanillaVanilla is a flavoring derived from orchids of the genus Vanilla, primarily from the Mexican species, Flat-leaved Vanilla . The word vanilla derives from the Spanish word "", little pod...
and coffeeCoffeeCoffee is a brewed beverage with a dark,init brooo acidic flavor prepared from the roasted seeds of the coffee plant, colloquially called coffee beans. The beans are found in coffee cherries, which grow on trees cultivated in over 70 countries, primarily in equatorial Latin America, Southeast Asia,... - Earthy – Aromas such as mushroomMushroomA mushroom is the fleshy, spore-bearing fruiting body of a fungus, typically produced above ground on soil or on its food source. The standard for the name "mushroom" is the cultivated white button mushroom, Agaricus bisporus; hence the word "mushroom" is most often applied to those fungi that...
and mildewMildewMildew refers to certain kinds of molds or fungi.In Old English, it meant honeydew , and later came to mean mildew in the modern sense of mold or fungus....
The German Wine Institute has created a special German language
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
version of the Aroma Wheel meant to be specially adapted to German wine
German wine
German wine is primarily produced in the west of Germany, along the river Rhine and its tributaries, with the oldest plantations going back to the Roman era. Approximately 60 percent of the German wine production is situated in the federal state of Rhineland-Palatinate, where 6 of the 13 regions ...
s, with one wheel for white wines and one wheel for red wines. However, in the translation they removed the petroleum smell (and the entire "chemical" category) from the white wine wheel, despite the fact that mature Riesling
Riesling
Riesling is a white grape variety which originated in the Rhine region of Germany. Riesling is an aromatic grape variety displaying flowery, almost perfumed, aromas as well as high acidity. It is used to make dry, semi-sweet, sweet and sparkling white wines. Riesling wines are usually varietally...
wines - Germany's signature grape variety - are the best-known examples of wines that show this aroma. It seems that the motive for omitting the reference to petroleum was that many consumers perceive it as a "negative" aroma. The Institute's move has been criticized by foreign experts on German wines.
Honors
- 2000 – Award of Merit, American Wine Society
- 2001 – Outstanding women in California wineCalifornia wineCalifornia wine has a long and continuing history, and in the late twentieth century became recognized as producing some of the world's finest wine. While wine is made in all fifty U.S. states, up to 90% of American wine is produced in the state...
industry award, Decanter Magazine
Select published work
This is an incomplete list- Biotechnology and Bioengineering, 1976 "Aroma of sherry wines"
- Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, 1980 "Bitterness and astringency of phenolic fractions in wine"
- Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, 1980 "Wine head space analysis. Reproducibility and application to varietal classification"
- American Journal of Enology and Viticulture, 1990 "The Effects of Leaf and Cluster Shading on the Composition of Cabernet Sauvignon Grapes and on Fruit and Wine Sensory Properties"
- Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, 1991 "Distribution of Free and Glycosidically Bound Monoterpenes in the Skin and Mesocarp of Muscat of Alexandria Grapes during Development"
- American Journal of Enology and Viticulture, 1994 "The Effect of Ethanol, Catechin Concentration, and pH on Sourness and Bitterness of Wine"
- American Journal of Enology and Viticulture, 1995 "Application of Time-Intensity Procedures for the Evaluation of Taste and Mouthfeel"
- American Journal of Enology and Viticulture, 2000 "Formation of Hydrogen Sulfide and Glutathione During Fermentation of White Grape Musts"
- Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, 2002 "Characterization of Odor-Active Compounds in Californian Chardonnay Wines Using GC-Olfactometry and GC-Mass Spectrometry"
- American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 2005 "Polyphenols: factors influencing their sensory properties and their effects on food and beverage preferences"
External links
- Aroma Wheel-Official Site