Ann C. Noble is a sensory

chemist A chemist (from Greek ''chēm(ía)'' alchemy; replacing ''chymist'' from Medieval Latin ''alchemist'') is a scientist trained in the study of chemistry. Chemists study the composition of matter and its properties. Chemists carefully describe t ...

and retired professor from the

University of California, Davis The University of California, Davis (UC Davis, UCD, or Davis) is a public land-grant research university near Davis, California. Named a Public Ivy, it is the northernmost of the ten campuses of the University of California system. The inst ...

. During her time at the UC Davis Department of Viticulture and Enology, Noble invented the "Aroma Wheel" which is credited with enhancing the public understanding of

wine tasting Wine tasting is the sensory examination and evaluation of wine. While the practice of wine tasting is as ancient as its production, a more formalized methodology has slowly become established from the 14th century onward. Modern, professional w ...

and

terminology Terminology is a group of specialized words and respective meanings in a particular field, and also the study of such terms and their use; the latter meaning is also known as terminology science. A ''term'' is a word, compound word, or multi-wo ...

.J. Robinson (ed) ''"The Oxford Companion to Wine"'' Third Edition pg 35-36 Oxford University Press 2006 At the time of her hiring at UC Davis in 1974, Noble was the first woman hired as a faculty member of the Viticulture department.L. Alley '
Wine Sensory Scientist Ann Noble Retires From UC Davis
''

Wine Spectator ''Wine Spectator'' is an American lifestyle magazine that focuses on wine and wine culture, and gives out ratings to certain types of wine. It publishes 15 issues per year with content that includes news, articles, profiles, and general entertain ...

, August 21st, 2002. Noble retired from Davis in 2002 and in 2003 was named Emeritus Professor of

Enology Oenology (also enology; ) is the science and study of wine and winemaking. Oenology is distinct from viticulture, which is the science of the growing, cultivation, and harvesting of grapes. The English word oenology derives from the Greek word ' ...

. Since retirement she has participated as a judge in the

San Francisco Chronicle The ''San Francisco Chronicle'' is a newspaper serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area of Northern California. It was founded in 1865 as ''The Daily Dramatic Chronicle'' by teenage brothers Charles de Young and Michael H. de Young. The ...

Wine Competition A wine competition is an organized event in which trained judges or consumers competitively rate different vintages, categories, and/or brands of wine. Wine competitions generally use blind tasting of wine to prevent bias by the judges. Types of ...

.San Francisco Chronicle '
Ann Noble bio
'' Wine Judge: Accessed Dec. 16th, 2007

Career

After earning her

Ph.D. A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields. Because it is ...

Food science Food science is the basic science and applied science of food; its scope starts at overlap with agricultural science and nutritional science and leads through the scientific aspects of food safety and food processing, informing the development ...

from the

University of Massachusetts Amherst The University of Massachusetts Amherst (UMass Amherst, UMass) is a public research university in Amherst, Massachusetts and the sole public land-grant university in Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Founded in 1863 as an agricultural college, ...

, Noble was hired by UC Davis in 1974 to work in their sensory research program. After studying the techniques and application of

wine Wine is an alcoholic drink typically made from fermented grapes. Yeast consumes the sugar in the grapes and converts it to ethanol and carbon dioxide, releasing heat in the process. Different varieties of grapes and strains of yeasts are m ...

tasting, Noble discovered that there was no objective framework or widely agreed upon terminology that a wine taster could use to describe things such as "earthy" aromas or the different smells of various

fruit In botany, a fruit is the seed-bearing structure in flowering plants that is formed from the ovary after flowering. Fruits are the means by which flowering plants (also known as angiosperms) disseminate their seeds. Edible fruits in particu ...

s that can show up in a wine. In 1984, her research lead her to develop the "Aroma Wheel". Other research work went into how a wine's aroma and flavor can influence

consumer A consumer is a person or a group who intends to order, or uses purchased goods, products, or services primarily for personal, social, family, household and similar needs, who is not directly related to entrepreneurial or business activities. ...

choices as well as how wine tasters perceive astringency in wine. Noble, in addition to her work on the wine aroma wheel, also did research on multivariate statistics of sensory data and its applications. She also published over 150 research papers in her time there.

The Aroma Wheel

The Aroma Wheel provides a visual graphic of the different categories and aroma components that one can encounter in wine. The terminology used is standardized for use by both professionals and amateur wine tasters. Aroma is identified by the olfactory bulb from through inhalation of the wine's scent, and is used to identify the flavors from the grape itself. Bouquet refers to compounds that can affect the flavours, such as sugar, oak, and acid. The aroma wheel does not contain terms to describe texture or

mouthfeel Mouthfeel refers to the physical sensations in the mouth caused by food or drink, making it distinct from taste. It is a fundamental sensory attribute which, along with taste and smell, determines the overall flavor of a food item. Mouthfeel ...

, however these are listed in the Australian "Mouthfeel Wheel". A separate Aroma Wheel has also been created for

sparkling wine Sparkling wine is a wine with significant levels of carbon dioxide in it, making it fizzy. While the phrase commonly refers to champagne, European Union countries legally reserve that term for products exclusively produced in the Champagne regi ...

. The wheel breaks down wine aromas into 12 basic categories and then further sub-divided into different aromas that can fall into those main categories. *

Chemical A chemical substance is a form of matter having constant chemical composition and characteristic properties. Some references add that chemical substance cannot be separated into its constituent elements by physical separation methods, i.e., w ...

– Includes aromas like sulfur and

petroleum Petroleum, also known as crude oil, or simply oil, is a naturally occurring yellowish-black liquid mixture of mainly hydrocarbons, and is found in geological formations. The name ''petroleum'' covers both naturally occurring unprocessed crud ...

Pungent Pungency () refers to the taste of food commonly referred to as spiciness, hotness or heat, found in foods such as chili peppers. Highly pungent tastes may be experienced as unpleasant. The term piquancy () is sometimes applied to foods with a l ...

– Aromas like alcohol *

Oxidized Redox (reduction–oxidation, , ) is a type of chemical reaction in which the oxidation states of substrate change. Oxidation is the loss of electrons or an increase in the oxidation state, while reduction is the gain of electrons or a ...

– Aromas like acetaldehyde *

Microbiological Microbiology () is the scientific study of microorganisms, those being unicellular (single cell), multicellular (cell colony), or acellular (lacking cells). Microbiology encompasses numerous sub-disciplines including virology, bacteriology, pro ...

– Aromas like

yeast Yeasts are eukaryotic, single-celled microorganisms classified as members of the fungus kingdom. The first yeast originated hundreds of millions of years ago, and at least 1,500 species are currently recognized. They are estimated to constit ...

and

lactic acid Lactic acid is an organic acid. It has a molecular formula . It is white in the solid state and it is miscible with water. When in the dissolved state, it forms a colorless solution. Production includes both artificial synthesis as well as nat ...

Floral A flower, sometimes known as a bloom or blossom, is the reproductive structure found in flowering plants (plants of the division Angiospermae). The biological function of a flower is to facilitate reproduction, usually by providing a mechanism ...

– Aromas like '' Pelargonium'' geraniums and

linalool Linalool () refers to two enantiomers of a naturally occurring terpene alcohol found in many flowers and spice plants. Linalool has multiple commercial applications, the majority of which are based on its pleasant scent (floral, with a touch of ...

Spicy Pungency () refers to the taste of food commonly referred to as spiciness, hotness or heat, found in foods such as chili peppers. Highly pungent tastes may be experienced as unpleasant. The term piquancy () is sometimes applied to foods with a l ...

– Aromas like

licorice Liquorice (British English) or licorice (American English) ( ; also ) is the common name of ''Glycyrrhiza glabra'', a flowering plant of the bean family Fabaceae, from the root of which a sweet, aromatic flavouring can be extracted. The liq ...

and anise * Fruity – Aromas like blackcurrant and apricot * Vegetative – Aromas like

eucalyptus ''Eucalyptus'' () is a genus of over seven hundred species of flowering trees, shrubs or mallees in the myrtle family, Myrtaceae. Along with several other genera in the tribe Eucalypteae, including '' Corymbia'', they are commonly known as e ...

and

artichoke The globe artichoke ('' Cynara cardunculus'' var. ''scolymus'' ),Rottenberg, A., and D. Zohary, 1996: "The wild ancestry of the cultivated artichoke." Genet. Res. Crop Evol. 43, 53–58. also known by the names French artichoke and green artich ...

Nutty ''Nutty'' was a British comic magazine that ran for 292 issues from 16 February 1980 to 14 September 1985, when it merged with ''The Dandy''. Published by D. C. Thomson & Co. Ltd, ''Nutty'' was an attempt to create a more lively and chaotic co ...

– Aromas like

walnut A walnut is the edible seed of a drupe of any tree of the genus ''Juglans'' (family Juglandaceae), particularly the Persian or English walnut, '' Juglans regia''. Although culinarily considered a "nut" and used as such, it is not a true ...

and hazelnut *

Caramelized Caramelization is a process of browning of sugar used extensively in cooking for the resulting sweet nutty flavor and brown color. The brown colors are produced by three groups of polymers: caramelans (C24H36O18), caramelens (C36H50O25), and ca ...

– Aromas like

butterscotch Butterscotch is a type of confectionery whose primary ingredients are brown sugar and butter, but other ingredients are part of some recipes, such as corn syrup, cream, vanilla, and salt. The earliest known recipes, in mid-19th century Yorkshir ...

and molasses *

Wood Wood is a porous and fibrous structural tissue found in the stems and roots of trees and other woody plants. It is an organic materiala natural composite of cellulose fibers that are strong in tension and embedded in a matrix of lignin ...

y – Aromas often imparted by

oak An oak is a tree or shrub in the genus ''Quercus'' (; Latin "oak tree") of the beech family, Fagaceae. There are approximately 500 extant species of oaks. The common name "oak" also appears in the names of species in related genera, notably ''L ...

vanilla Vanilla is a spice derived from orchids of the genus ''Vanilla (genus), Vanilla'', primarily obtained from pods of the Mexican species, flat-leaved vanilla (''Vanilla planifolia, V. planifolia''). Pollination is required to make the p ...

and

coffee Coffee is a drink prepared from roasted coffee beans. Darkly colored, bitter, and slightly acidic, coffee has a stimulating effect on humans, primarily due to its caffeine content. It is the most popular hot drink in the world. Seeds of ...

* Earthy – Aromas such as

mushroom A mushroom or toadstool is the fleshy, spore-bearing fruiting body of a fungus, typically produced above ground, on soil, or on its food source. ''Toadstool'' generally denotes one poisonous to humans. The standard for the name "mushroom" is ...

and

mildew Mildew is a form of fungus. It is distinguished from its closely related counterpart, mould, largely by its colour: moulds appear in shades of black, blue, red, and green, whereas mildew is white. It appears as a thin, superficial growth consi ...

The

German Wine Institute German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) **Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ge ...

has created a special

German language German ( ) is a West Germanic language mainly spoken in Central Europe. It is the most widely spoken and official or co-official language in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, and the Italian province of South Tyrol. It is als ...

version of the Aroma Wheel meant to be specially adapted to

German wine German wine is primarily produced in the west of Germany, along the river Rhine and its tributaries, with the oldest plantations going back to the Ancient Rome, Roman era. Approximately 60 percent of German wine is produced in the state of Rhine ...

s, with one wheel for white wines and one wheel for red wines. However, in the translation they removed the petroleum smell (and the entire "chemical" category) from the white wine wheel, despite the fact that mature

Riesling Riesling (, ; ) is a white grape variety that originated in the Rhine region. Riesling is an aromatic grape variety displaying flowery, almost perfumed, aromas as well as high acidity. It is used to make dry, semi-sweet, sweet, and sparkling wh ...

wines - Germany's signature grape variety - are the best-known examples of wines that show this aroma. It seems that the motive for omitting the reference to petroleum was that many consumers perceive it as a "negative" aroma. The Institute's move has been criticized by foreign experts on German wines.Owen Bird, ''Rheingold - The German Wine Renaissance'', Arima Publishing 2005, pp. 90-97

Post-retirement

Noble currently teaches classes domestically and internationally. She also continues to work as a wine judge. She participates in meetings concerning Wine, Science, and Sensometrics in the U.S. and overseas. She is also writing a book on Wine Sensory evaluation.

Honors

* 1994 – Honorary Research Lecturer, American Society of Viticulture and Enology * 2000 – Award of Merit, American Wine Society * 2001 – Outstanding women in

California wine California wine production has a rich viticulture history since 1680 when Spanish Jesuit missionaries planted ''Vitis vinifera'' vines native to the Mediterranean region in their established missions to produce wine for religious services. I ...

industry award, '' Decanter Magazine'' * 2012 – One of “The 50 Most Powerful Women in Wine", ''The Drinks Business''

Select published work

''This is an incomplete list'' * Biotechnology and Bioengineering, 1976 '
Aroma of sherry wines
'' * Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, 1980 '
Bitterness and astringency of phenolic fractions in wine
'' * Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, 1980 '
Wine head space analysis. Reproducibility and application to varietal classification
'' * American Journal of Enology and Viticulture, 1990 '
The Effects of Leaf and Cluster Shading on the Composition of Cabernet Sauvignon Grapes and on Fruit and Wine Sensory Properties
'' * Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, 1991 '
Distribution of Free and Glycosidically Bound Monoterpenes in the Skin and Mesocarp of Muscat of Alexandria Grapes during Development
'" * American Journal of Enology and Viticulture, 1994 '
The Effect of Ethanol, Catechin Concentration, and pH on Sourness and Bitterness of Wine
'' * American Journal of Enology and Viticulture, 1995 '
Application of Time-Intensity Procedures for the Evaluation of Taste and Mouthfeel
'' * American Journal of Enology and Viticulture, 2000 '
Formation of Hydrogen Sulfide and Glutathione During Fermentation of White Grape Musts
'' * Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, 2002 '

'' * American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 2005 ''" ttp://www.ajcn.org/cgi/content/abstract/81/1/330S Polyphenols: factors influencing their sensory properties and their effects on food and beverage preferences''

References

External links

Aroma Wheel
Official Site
Ann Noble Papers
a
Special Collections Dept.
University Library, University of California, Davis {{DEFAULTSORT:Noble, Ann C. Year of birth missing (living people) Place of birth missing (living people) Living people Oenologists University of California, Davis faculty University of Massachusetts Amherst College of Natural Sciences alumni American women chemists 20th-century American chemists 20th-century American women scientists 21st-century American chemists 21st-century American women scientists