Vino! Vino!

The average person has roughly 5,000 taste buds. Get in front of a mirror, open your mouth and start counting! You will find your mouth is full of these sensitive little guys, from the tip of your tongue all the way to the back of your throat. There is no denying their role in appreciating food and drink. We have all experienced the tragedy that is not being able to taste dessert after scorching your tongue on an ungodly hot piece of pizza. However, when it comes to enjoying wine, so much of what we experience is based on what we smell. A burnt tongue can no doubt ruin a dining experience but a stuffy nose can be just as, if not more inhibiting when it comes to savoring culinary delights.

When we talk about the “taste” or “flavor” of something, what we are really referring to is a combination of taste, smell and touch. Human beings are only actually capable of perceiving five different tastes: sweet, sour, salty, bitter, and umami, a Japanese term, which loosely translates to “savory.” This means if we relied solely on our taste buds we would miss out on a huge part of what we taste when eating and drinking. We need more information than what we can get from our taste buds, but as luck would have it, where our tongues fall short, our noses pick up the slack.

Stick your nose deep into a glass of wine and breath. What do you smell? Chocolate, eucalyptus, baking spices, kaffir lime, forest floor, and petrol are just a few things that may come to mind. Now take a sip. What you taste seems to confirm what you smell. There are over 500 chemical compounds found in wine that are also found in fruits, vegetables and other sometimes, surprising substances. Some compounds occur naturally in grapes but others develop during fermentation or as wines age. The aromas they produce account for the majority of the flavors we detect in wine.

The average person has the ability to detect more than two thousand odors. When you take a sip of wine, or anything else for that matter, its aromas are pushed through your mouth, past your pallet, and up into your nasal cavity in a process called retro nasal olfaction. The brain then registers these aromas as flavor. If you have ever come across anyone slurping up their wine, chances are they were probably trying to encourage this process. By sucking in air as you hold a small amount of wine in your mouth, you enable more of the odors to travel up into the nasal cavity, enhancing what you taste. Inversely, try holding your nose while taking a drink. Without the airflow through the nasal cavity, what you taste will be significantly diminished.

So the next time you find yourself in front of a glass of wine, take a minute to think about what you smell. And, if you are honing your tasting skills, be sure you give your nose a work out on a regular basis. If you aren’t familiar with the aromas of kaffir lime or eucalyptus, get to the market and pick some up. Or stop and collect a handful of dirt from your next hike in the woods so you recognize the earthiness in your cabernet. The more you use your nose the more discerning it will become. And with a strong schnoz, you will be a wine tasting machine in no time!

Maggie loves wine. In recent years this love evolved into what some might call a habit so she took a job with a distributor to justify her way of life. She currently lives in Sturgeon Bay with her cat, Lupe, and her wine.