Alexandre Schmitt made a dramatic shift from the world of haute parfumerie to another field equally bound to aroma: wine blending. He shares the essence of his sensory-driven approach—and explains why training your nose is essential to tasting wine.
Alexandre Schmitt made an unusual leap from the rarefied world of luxury fragrance to another realm just as intimately connected to aroma: fine wine. He owes this career shift, in part, to a fortuitous encounter with Jean-Claude Berrouet, then technical director at Château Petrus. In 1995, Berrouet proposed an exchange: he would teach Alexandre the intricacies of wine, in return for a deep dive into the world of scent and olfaction.
Today, Alexandre is in high demand across the wine world. Estates large and small call on him to help their teams develop a shared vocabulary—crucial to fostering meaningful dialogue during tastings.
Q: Alexandre, you’re what’s known as a ‘nose’—an aroma specialist from the perfume world—and now you work as a blending consultant in wine. What does your organoleptic approach involve?
Alexandre Schmitt (AS): For me, it all begins with sensation. The term ‘organoleptic’ refers to every sensory impression a wine gives—from the initial nose to what we perceive in the mouth, including retronasal aromas (those picked up as the wine lingers on the palate). It encompasses smells, flavours, textures, the sensation of heat or cold, the burn of spice or alcohol.
Each of us is shaped by our personal experiences: a child raised on a farm in Cambodia will not have the same sensory memory—the same ‘library’ of smells and tastes—as one brought up in a London townhouse. Our first reflex when we encounter a wine is to compare what we’re smelling to what we’ve already known. That subjectivity is unavoidable—but it needs to be organised, given structure.
When I present cedarwood to a group of ten people, they all describe something different: some think of Christmas trees, pine needles, sap; others, of plaster, dust, or pencil shavings. To clarify that perception, I break it down into two notes: a fresh, resinous one, and a dry, woody one with astringent edges. Bit by bit, we create a shared framework of understanding.
‘To trust your senses and learn to decode them, you have to practice olfactory and gustatory scales.’
Q: How does this framework differ from the more traditional approach taken by wine enthusiasts?
AS: Most informed amateurs tend to focus on regions and grape varieties, which makes sense—it’s how we learn, through terroir and appellation. It’s useful, even essential. But if you stop there, you risk becoming trapped in a rigid, academic mindset.
A sensory-first approach is different. I focus on balance, on structure, on harmony. I pay attention to tannin texture, brilliance, acidity, and the finest nuances of the wine’s aromatic profile.
It doesn’t mean there’s nothing to learn—far from it. But to truly trust your senses and interpret what they’re telling you, you need to practise. Daily. Like a musician rehearsing their scales, young tasters must train to build a reliable sensory memory. Yes, you must absorb knowledge—but eventually, you also need to break free from it, and trust yourself. That self-confidence is one of the great challenges in wine tasting.
There are more than thirty families of aromatic notes to recognise—fruity, floral, woody, spicy, and more. And the taxonomy includes faults as well: reduction, oxidation, cork taint, and so on.
When a wine is too forcefully aromatic, it can feel vulgar. But finesse on its own isn’t enough either—without structure, it lacks presence. You need what I call temperance, in the Platonic sense: a human-crafted balance that feels completely natural, effortless—something whose beauty is both immediate and complex.
A memory at Lafite
‘Drinking it, I saw black and white images: the vines being harvested during the First World War, tended only by women while the men were away at the front.’
Q: To illustrate this quest for balance, do you have a memorable tasting memory?
AS: Yes, I remember a casual, improvised lunch at Château Lafite Rothschild. We blind tasted two extraordinary – and very different – wines. The first, a Château Lafite Rothschild 1961, was of great elegance, almost chalky, with silky tannins, a wine of pure refined raciness. Then came a Latour 1917, a wine steeped in history. As I drank it, I could see black-and-white footage in my mind: the trenches of Verdun, vines harvested in wartime by women alone.
The Latour was more expansive, with a texture closer to velvet than silk, with that clayey base giving it more power and unctuousness. Two great Médoc first growths, geographically close, but with such singular soil expressions.
让我们一同来寻访失落的酒窖仪式。在葡萄酒的世界里，有些古老的酿酒技术曾是行业圭臬，如今渐渐抽身退步，让位于新工艺。然而，真正的创新从不会抛弃传统，而是此基础上不断演进。
调配
水果和光子之间的词汇之旅。
我们的“调配”部分重点介绍了与杂志主题相关的一些注释和轶事。