A Nose by any other Name

From The Wine Spectator:
"Traditionally, “bouquet” is used to describe a wine’s aromas when the wine has aged in bottle and has begun to exhibit  “secondary” notes ."

Am I smelling an aroma or a bouquet?   And does it really matter?  My answer is that, no, it really doesn't matter what you call the scent of the wine you are sniffing.

However, I think it helps to make the distinction between a young newly released wine and an aged wine.  It's all a matter of what your mind is looking for.  In younger wines the flurry of aromas are still a more separate experience.  

Let me put it this way, when someone brings in a bunch of flowers into a room, the air is full of separate smells from the individual stems.  Pull one flower from the bunch and you get an aroma.
Stick your nose into the bunch and you get a bouquet.  After time, the surrounding air melds all those separate smells into one beautiful vapor.  A similar event takes place in the wine bottle as it ages, all the separate smells meld into a delightful whole.

Practically speaking then for the wine taster, knowing the age of the wine allows you to look for different qualities of aromas in the wine.  Hence, when you have a thirty year old "Cab" you don't look for distinct separate aromas, you enjoy the "bouquet."