Best Wine Tasting Kit: 7 Aroma Kits and Tasting Tools

The best wine tasting kit for most people who want to get better at describing wine is an aroma kit: a box of scent vials that teaches your nose what “blackcurrant,” “vanilla” or “toast” actually smell like. Our pick is the Le Nez du Vin Master Kit, a 54-aroma box that its maker says generations of sommeliers have used. Beginners can start with a 12-aroma kit or a paper aroma wheel, and anyone hosting a blind tasting needs a way to hide the wine, such as a black tasting glass. Below are seven kits and tools, what each maker says is inside, and who each suits. This guide also covers the “wine aroma kit” question, since that is what most tasting kits are.

How we chose

We don’t test products or taste wines. As we explain in how we rate wine and choose accessories, every count and spec here comes from the maker’s own page, listed in the Sources box. We looked for:

• A stated number of aromas and a clear list of what’s in the box.
• Learning material included: cards, a book or a guide, not just vials.
• One tool per tasting job: learning aromas, learning faults, tasting blind and keeping notes.
• A price from the maker. Le Nez du Vin and AroMaster sell from Europe, so some prices are in euros, as their stores list them.

Wine tasting kits compared

Kit	What’s inside	Best for	Price band (Oct 2026)
Le Nez du Vin Master Kit	54 aromas, 54 cards, 120-page book	Serious learners	€319 (maker)
Le Nez du Vin Red Wines	12 aromas, 2 booklets	Beginners, red drinkers	€79 (maker)
AroMaster Master Wine Aroma Kit	88 aromas, manual, aroma wheel booklet, board game	Students, wine groups	Around $415 (maker)
Le Nez du Vin Wine Faults	12 fault aromas, 36-page book	Spotting bad bottles	€79 (maker)
Riedel Blind Blind Tasting Glass	1 black crystal glass	Blind tastings	No price shown (maker)
Wine Folly Wine Journal	160-page notebook, color insert	Keeping notes	Around $20 to $25 (Wine Folly)
The Wine Aroma Wheel	8.5-inch laminated wheel	A cheap first step	No price shown (maker)

The best wine tasting kits

Le Nez du Vin Master Kit 54 aromas

Who it’s for: anyone who tastes wine regularly and wants to name what they smell with confidence.

Le Nez du Vin was created by Jean Lenoir, who began working on it in 1977 with the oenologist Max Léglise; the kits have been made in France since 1981 and are assembled by hand in Cassis, Provence. The maker lists:

• 54 aromas in vials, each a blend of natural and synthetic ingredients (roughly half and half, according to the maker);
• 54 cards that link each aroma to wines;
• an illustrated 120-page book on how aromas form, how smell works and the aroma profiles of major grapes and regions;
• a carmine red clothbound box, 38.2 x 29.4 x 5.5 cm closed.

The aromas are grouped as fruity (23, from lemon to walnut), floral (6), vegetal and spicy (15, including green bell pepper, truffle and vanilla), animal (3: leather, musk, butter) and roasted (7, from toast to dark chocolate). The fragrances are guaranteed for 5 years, and the maker says a kit can last up to ten if stored upright away from light and heat. It was €319 on the maker’s store in October 2026.

This is the kit we’d buy, because the cards and the book turn it from a box of smells into a course.

The trade-off: price. The maker doesn’t list a US price, and it is a big outlay if you are just curious. It also doesn’t include fault aromas; those come in a separate kit. Check the Le Nez du Vin Master Kit on Amazon.

Le Nez du Vin Red Wines 12 aromas

Who it’s for: beginners who mostly drink red wine, or anyone testing whether an aroma kit is for them.

The maker lists 12 aromas and two booklets in this box, at €79 in October 2026: strawberry, raspberry, blackcurrant, blackberry, cherry, violet, green bell pepper, truffle, liquorice, vanilla, pepper and a smoky note. One booklet covers where aromas come from and how smell works; the other shows where each red-wine aroma turns up by grape and region. There is a matching White Wines & Champagnes 12 aromas kit at the same price, and the two together make up the Duo 24 aromas (€159), which the Master Kit already contains. A Nose knows kit with 6 aromas and one booklet is the smallest option, at €29.

We’d start here rather than with the full box: 12 well-chosen aromas are easier to learn than 54.

The trade-off: if you later want the full set, the Master Kit already includes the Duo’s aromas, so buying the small kits first means paying twice for some vials. Check Le Nez du Vin 12-aroma kits on Amazon.

AroMaster Master Wine Aroma Kit

Who it’s for: wine students, tasting groups and anyone who wants the widest range of scents in one box.

AroMaster calls this the world’s most comprehensive collection of wine aromas. Its product page lists:

• 88 aromas, numbered in groups: fruity (white and red wine), floral, vegetal, mineral, yeast, malolactic fermentation (the buttery note), 20 aromas from oak barrel aging, aged white and red wine, and 9 wine faults;
• a manual on using the aromas, wine faults, and grape varieties versus appellations;
• a Wine Aroma Wheel booklet covering 20 grape varieties;
• a board game and 4 metal tokens designed by the artist Yves Lemay.

It was listed at USD 415 (EUR 359), taxes included, on AroMaster’s site in October 2026, and the page offers it in ten languages.

The trade-off: 88 aromas is a lot to work through, and for a beginner that can be more confusing than helpful. The page doesn’t describe the box beyond its photos. Check the AroMaster 88 aroma kit on Amazon.

Le Nez du Vin Wine Faults 12 aromas

Who it’s for: anyone who wants to know for sure when a bottle has gone wrong.

The maker lists 12 aromas and a 36-page book on wine faults, their causes and how to avoid or reduce them, in a grey box. The twelve are green bell pepper, mustiness, sulphites, onion, cabbage, rancid butter, bruised apple, shoe polish, vinegar, nail polish remover, horse sweat and cork taint. Le Nez du Vin sells it as a complement to the Master Kit, and it was €79 in October 2026.

Knowing the faults is the most practical skill a tasting kit can teach. AroMaster sells a rival 12-aroma faults kit (€75) whose list adds geranium, oxidized, maderized, rubber, rotten eggs and sweet corn.

The trade-off: it is a specialist kit. On its own it won’t teach you what a healthy wine smells like. Check the Le Nez du Vin Wine Faults kit on Amazon.

Riedel Sommeliers Blind Blind Tasting Glass

Who it’s for: hosts of blind tastings and anyone training for a wine exam.

In a blind tasting, you taste without knowing what the wine is. A normal glass still gives away the color, which hints at the grape and the age. Riedel’s answer is a glass in solid black crystal:

• Item: 8400/15, from the Sommeliers collection that Claus J. Riedel introduced in 1973.
• Made: by hand.
• Height: 8.9 inches; Riedel lists a recommended pour of 4.2 oz, not the full bowl.
• Purpose, according to Riedel: without sight, the taster focuses on aroma, texture and flavor.

In our view, a couple of these turn an ordinary dinner into a proper guessing game.

The trade-off: Riedel’s page shows no price and sends buyers to retailers, and it doesn’t say whether this glass is dishwasher safe. It is a single glass, so a group needs several. Bagging the bottles costs nothing, if you can live with seeing the color. Check the Riedel blind tasting glass on Amazon.

Wine Folly Wine Journal

Who it’s for: anyone who wants to remember what they liked, and why.

Wine Folly’s notebook is built around a 4-step tasting method, the same look-smell-taste approach our guide to how to taste wine walks through. Wine Folly lists:

• B6 size (4.9 x 6.9 inches), pocket-sized;
• 160 pages with notes for 78 wines and 4 index pages;
• 100 lb Forest Stewardship Council certified paper;
• a ribbon page marker and a color insert for judging a wine’s color.

It was $19.99 on sale ($24.99 regular) on Wine Folly’s US store in October 2026, as a single or a 5-pack. It is one of the cheapest tools on this list, and in our view the one that helps most, because writing a note forces you to pay attention.

The trade-off: it is a notebook, not a kit; it won’t teach you aromas on its own. Check the Wine Folly Wine Journal on Amazon.

The Wine Aroma Wheel by A.C. Noble

Who it’s for: beginners and anyone who wants a word list in front of them while tasting.

Dr. Ann C. Noble, a sensory chemist and professor at the University of California, Davis, created the wheel to give wine drinkers and professionals a shared, precise vocabulary. Its first version appeared in 1984 and it was refined in 1987, according to the official site. The maker lists:

• an 8.5-inch wheel on thick, laminated paper;
• the red and white wine wheel in eight languages;
• a How To Guide PDF after purchase, plus a separate sparkling wine wheel.

The idea is to start with the general terms in the center, such as “fruity,” and work out to specific ones such as “raspberry.” We’d put one next to the Wine Folly journal for a beginner’s tasting kit under most budgets.

The trade-off: it gives you words, not smells. The official store page doesn’t show a price, and it points to Amazon for some versions. Check the Wine Aroma Wheel on Amazon.

What to look for in a wine tasting kit

Start small. Twelve aromas you can actually recognize are worth more than 88 you can’t tell apart. Move up to a full kit once the basics stick.

Check what’s included besides the vials. Cards and a book that link each aroma to grapes and regions are what make a kit useful. Le Nez du Vin says its vials and books can’t be bought separately.

Store the vials well. Aroma vials fade with heat and light. Le Nez du Vin recommends keeping them upright, away from radiators and sunlight.

Decide whether you need faults. If you often wonder whether a bottle is off, a faults kit pays for itself faster than more fruit aromas.

For blind tasting, hide the label and the color. Bags or foil hide the bottle; a black glass hides the wine. Number the bottles and let someone else pour.

Pair the kit with a good book. Our guide to the best wine books covers references such as Wine Folly: Magnum Edition and The World Atlas of Wine.

Wine is for adults of legal drinking age (21 in the US). When tasting several wines, small pours and a spit cup help you keep a clear head.