Meet Ann Noble: Chemist & Creator of The Aroma Wheel

This interview has been edited for clarity and was featured in the October 25, 2023 issue of Merobebe.

Image courtesy of winearomawheel.com

This week’s Woman in Wine is not a winemaker or a sommelier, but a sensory chemist and former professor from the University of California, Davis.

Originally from Massachusetts, Ann got her PhD in food science from the University of Massachusetts Amherst. In 1974, she was hired at UC Davis (known for their wine programs) and became the first woman hired as a faculty member in the Viticulture department.

There, she worked in their sensory research program and studied the techniques and application of wine tasting.While doing this research, she realized that there wasn’t any standard, objective framework or terminology used within the industry. Instead, wine professionals would just use convoluted terms that were personal to them, but perhaps not to anyone else. Not only was this annoying for wine consumers, it also made her research into understanding how specific vineyard or cellar practices could change wine aromas more difficult.

Ann wanted to create a communication system that wasn’t so vague or subjective, and would help both professionals and consumers better communicate and understand wine descriptions. In collaboration with her students and the American Society of Oenology and Viticulture, she went on to invent The Aroma Wheel in the 1980s.

For those of you who aren’t familiar, here’s what The Aroma Wheel looks like:

And just for fun, here’s Ann with the first iteration of the Aroma Wheel in 1984:

Image courtesy of winearomawheel.com

As you can see, it categorizes and provides a visual representation of the aroma components found in wine. The wheel breaks wine aromas into 11 basic categories, which are then further subdivided within those main categories.

For example, you can see some of the descriptions I used when talking about the candy pairings in the wine wheel, like “fruity” and “earthy.” Each category then has the aromas within that category, so “berry” or “citrus” would be in the “fruity” category, while “mushroom” would be in the “earthy” category.

Today, the Aroma Wheel is an industry standard and a must-have tool in wine education! While there are still some vague descriptions about “elegantly harmonious and complex” wines, you’ll almost always also find an aroma from the wheel listed in any wine description.

Ann published over 150 research papers during her time at UC Davis, and was named Emeritus Professor of Enology in 2003, a year after she retired. She also received an Award of Merit from the American Wine Society in 2000, and now continues to teach and judge wine competitions.

You can learn more about The Aroma Wheel here, or read the Wine Enthusiast interview with her here.