Caramel Aromas in Wines

"I bet caramel in wine sounds good. It does, and you can definitely smell some caramel in your wine. You might smell caramel, burnt sugar, cooking sugar, maple or sweetness in a wine, so we can just call that caramel. The caramel term is also used for a category of wine aromas that are kind of unique. You might smell burnt sugar, maple, brown sugar, caramel in a wine. That makes sense; it's very often in a sparkling wine. A little bit is sometimes in a red wine, and you very often smell a little bit of maple or brown sugar in a red wine. Other parts of a wine that are also classified as caramel get a little bit funnier, and one of them is chocolate. I know you don't really think of chocolate as being in wine, but you can smell chocolate in a red wine a lot. You can also use soy sauce as a wine descriptor for wine. This might sound a little strange, but it's also considered a brown sugar or caramel type of aroma. You can get the smell of soy sauce in a sturdy red wine, believe it or not; in a sparkling wine, and also in a white wine. So if you smell brown sugar, burnt sugar, caramel, soy sauce, chocolate; anything like that, you're smelling a caramel aroma. It might be a little bit fleeting, but it will add to your overall enjoyment of the wine."