Wine on Main and CandleTree have unveiled a new collaboration: Wine aroma kits.

These kits serve as a helpful tool for people looking to refine their sense of smell as they dive more into wine-tasting — and they’re a fun addition to any household!

Learn more from Emma Stetson who owns Wine on Main, in her own words:

There is a kit for white wine and a kit for red wine. Each kit contains 10 tea lights that are scented with important wine aromas. The idea is that you can train your nose to pick out the aromas when you’re smelling wine — and since smell is 80% to 90% of flavor, it trains your palate as well. White wine aromas include grass, gooseberry, citrus, apricot, apple, pear, honeydew, orange blossom, fresh bread, and vanilla. Red wine includes strawberry, blackberry, cherry, sage leaf, bell pepper, rose and violet, leather, wood, dirt, and cocoa.

This was a middle-of-the-night idea. It came to me out of the blue, woke me up, and I wrote it down to talk to Ross Mingarelli, who owns CandleTree. It actually fills a huge void in the wine industry.  Something that I hear from customers — and that I experienced when I was starting my wine journey — is that it’s so hard to pick out aromas and flavors, and there’s no good way to practice.  How do you know if a wine has a smell of gooseberry? You hear the professional say the red wine has notes of leather and cherry, but what does that mean?

One of my mentors used to tell us the only way was to go around the grocery store or the farmers’ market, sniffing things. That was 15 years ago, pre-COVID, so obviously I wouldn’t recommend that now. And what about things like gooseberry that aren’t easy to come by?  After years of dealing with this issue, it came to me in the middle of the night that we have a candle store across the street! Ross has some unique scents at the ready, but ordered some to fill out the boxes.

The kits, available for purchase at Wine on Main, are $25 each. Or you can get the set for $45.  

On the inside of the box, I’ve explained what each smell is and which wines and wine regions you’re likely to find it in. Plus, they stack for easy transport and storage!

Wine on Main is located at 9 North Main St. in Concord.