When you're out and about with your friends, and want to look like to Smartest Wine person at the bar, here are a few handy tips you can easily remember and use for identifying those aromas in your glass of wine:
a. Think in General terms or categories:
 Fruit /floral aromas, herbal aromas, Wood/spice aromas, Chemical aromas, Earthy aromas
b.  Now think specific, and use logic:
The aromatic profile of white wines will be indentified with white fleshy fruits, so you won't find any dark berry fruit flavors in whites.  Think apple, lemon, grapefruit, kiwi, pineapple, peaches, apricots.  For reds think red berry fruits or dark berry fruits, so raspberry, cherry, black cherry, blackberry, plum, currants, etc. 
Now for wood/spice aromas, these are imparted by wood aging or fermentation in oak: toast, vanilla, cinnamon, spices all have to do with oak.  Now, most whites are NOT aged in oak (except your chardonnays and sometimes sauvignon Blanc), but for the most part, white wine flavor profiles are too delicate and become masked by the heavier flavors of oak, so they are fermented instead in stainless steel, which is totally neutral.  Most all reds are aged in oak. 
Chemical aromas are usually reflections of sulphur and blow off as you let it open up.  However, it also can indicated the wine is truly faulted, in which case you shouldn't drink it at all and should send it back.  The general rule for sending a wine back, is if it makes you cringe with an unpleasant smell, it most likely is faulted.  The wine should smell clean not polluted.  When in doubt, return it! 
I hope this helps you on your next first date, or when you're showing off with friends.  Use logic, aroma identification doesn't have to be such a mystery!
 
Lindsay Pomeroy, BA, CSW
VinViillage, Director of Private Events and Marketing
Director of Wine, Dussini Mediterranean Bistro
Principal Consultant, The Wine Smarties