If you thought that sight and smell are the two most important aspect of wine tasting, think twice. Because here is Alexandra Elman, a wine trader and importer who has been in the wine industry for 17 long years and she is flying high despite being visually challenged.

Elman who is on the verge of starting her own business lost her sight due to a diabetic complication. But that obstacle could not deter her from pursuing her true passion, wine. She uses her heightened sense of smell and taste to determine what kind of soil the grapes were grown in, what was grown nearby, and whether the wine were treated with chemicals or aged in oak barrels.

"I lose myself in the glass of wine," she said. "My mind, my nose dives into the glass and I can smell if there was an apricot grove nearby, or artichokes.""

Elman was diagnosed with juvenile diabetes in 1977. She was already working in the wine industry when her eyesight started to fail at the age of 27. Within a year she went completely blind. It was her step-father Basil Winston, a well-known wine-industry figure who started to retrain her senses of smell and teste.

Now Elman, 41, is about to start her own business, Alex Elman Wines, trying to find natural, organic wines that can make a splash in a crowded market. Her label, which features an illustration of Elman in a vineyard with Hanley, her Labrador guide dog and companion, along with the variety of the wine spelled out in simulated Braille, will debut next week.

“"These wines are the best examples of what they are and where they come from. They are wines that are honestly made," she said. The wines are organically produced, and Elman has picked four with which to launch her company: a Chardonnay and a cabernet sauvignon, both from France; and a red, a Malbec, and a white called a Torrentes, both originating in Argentina.

The wines are priced at $12 to $15 a bottle which is affordable for every day consumption.