Identifying an odour can be difficult, particularly when odours are combined. However, wine experts are allegedly able to describe the odours and flavours of wines in ways that other experts can understand. These skills are learned, not innate. The aim of this thesis was to explore factors that potentially affect the identification of odours and wines in order to teach novices to identify wine samples. In initial experiments, odour mixtures were employed to determine which labels novices could learn to use in an identification task. Participants were able to use appropriate (veridical) labels, as well as self-generated labels that were mostly non-veridical. Similar experiments were conducted with wine samples. Participants could not use self-generated labels, but could use grape names (e.g. Shiraz) and short descriptors (e.g. pepper). However, performance was not as high as some in the odour experiments. This may indicate difficulty in detecting the elements in the wines. Thus, wine samples were adulterated to enhance these elements. Participants could use appropriate labels when the wines were adulterated, but performed poorly when the wines were no longer adulterated, indicating that this training method may not be effective. Participants in later experiments were allowed to taste the wines and were able to use grape names and descriptors to identify the wines, depending on the samples used. One final experiment involved training using conceptual information (e.g. information about wine regions), which was no more effective than sensory training. The major results of the thesis are: that novices can discriminate between wines using olfaction alone; that novices can learn to apply labels to wine with small amounts of training, but this learning may not transfer to other wines. There do not appear to be any shortcuts to becoming a wine expert, but novices can use labels to identify wines within a few hours of intense training
