Long an indispensable flavoring ingredient in beer, hops famously have one of the most complex aromas of any botanical ingredient. Hop experts I know suggest that there are at least 700 known terpenoids in hops, and that’s a conservative estimate. And as you can see from the chart below, there are many other chemical types contributing different characters to hops’ amazing aromas.
For the new book, I needed to find something to say about wine that gets to the root of how its flavors are created and change over time. While the stupefying complexities of terroir are undoubtedly central to understanding any one wine, it’s easy easy to get lost in that labyrinthine rabbit-hole, and miss the vineyard by focusing on the vines. Since most people interested in wine likely have boatloads of resources along those lines, I decided to skip it all and focus on a few basic questions I had never seen addressed in my stack of books or in conversations with sommeliers or tasting room staff.