Wine Peeps is an independent wine blog dedicated to helping you get the most bang for your buck in wine. We do this through blind tastings of wine from around the world and calculations of 
Wine Word of the Week: Bouquet
By Kori ~ August 7th, 2012.
This week’s Wine Word of the Week is bouquet.
Official definition from Jancis Robinson’s The Oxford Companion to Wine:
Bouquet is the oft-ridiculed tasting term for the smell of a wine, particularly that of a mature or maturing wine. …. It is used loosely by many wine tasters to describe any pleasant wine smell or smells but, just as a bouquet (rather than a bunch) of flowers suggests a composition of several varied elements, many wine professionals distinguish between the simple aroma of the grape and the bouquet of the more complex compounds which evolve as a result of fermentation, elevage, and bottle aging.
Layman’s terms from Kori:
Bouquet is a term that many wine tasters use when they: (a) think that a wine has an exceptional aroma and simply saying it is aromatic would not be enough, (b) are looking for a more interesting word to use than aroma or smell, or (c) want you to think that they are wine experts, and “This wine has a beautiful bouquet†sounds more sophisticated than “This wine smells good.â€
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