A scientific study made by olfactory researchers revealed that the human being can identify a billion different odours, but applying this ability to the wine industry opens up a veritable pandora’s box.
The fairy tale of Little Red Riding Hood – which has been told to children ever since the 14th century – features one particularly entertaining part, when the little girl expresses her wonder at the large size of the big bad wolf’s eyes, nose, ears and mouth. When she remarks on his large nose, the Canis lupus simply replies: “All the better to smell you with, my dear.” Until recently it was believed that the bloodhound – its name quickly revealing its hunting abilities – can distinguish some 300 million different scents, while human beings could muster no more than a “humble” five million.
A study published this year in Nature magazine refutes these figures. In fact it doesn’t just refute them, it blows them away. Actually, according to the scientific investigation carried out by researchers Andreas Keller, from The Rockefeller University, and Donald Wilson, from the New York University School of Medicine, the human being can identify a billion odours. The scientists prepared hundreds of mixtures of scents featuring up to 30 components selected from 128 odour molecules.
The tests were carried out on 26 volunteers, who were asked to distinguish between different scents. When two perfumes had more than 51% of shared components, the majority could detect similarities. They were thus able to estimate that humans can detect the quoted one billion. The study did not assess the scope of perception, nor did it compare human results with those of other mammals, but dogs and wolves can no doubt detect far more scents from a greater distance. The subject of wine aromas isn’t just some recent oddity. Roman philosopher and epicurean Lucretius was already talking about scents and their connection to what we can today call molecules back in the 1st century BC. Another study, carried out by Linda B. Buck and Richard Axel (winners of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2004), confirmed the beliefs of this Roman thinker.
They joined odour molecules and specific protein receptors. Each receptor molecule recognises at least one odour characteristic. Like the big bad wolf, we have sight and hearing to decide which action to take. We have our sense of smell and taste to tell us if something is edible, off, poisonous or if we like it. Smell and taste work together in such a way that the scent of a bacon sandwich arouses our appetite so much as to make us devour it. Our memory can invent and mislead us, even if inadvertently. How would anyone who has never smelled vanilla or mint or cat urine be able to distinguish them? If we were only aware of manmade aromas, of vanilla-flavoured biscuits, or of strawberry flavoured chewing gum, we wouldn’t be aware of the originals. When we come across a scent for the first time, we can assess it wrongly and be sure that we know it.
NOSES AND NEURONS
Experience does create memory, but then there are the geniuses. António Porto Soares Franco, winemaker and one of the owners of José Maria da Fonseca, had an exceptional nose, able to recognise wines in blind tastings, some of which he last tasted decades previously. Anyone related to the world of wine knows that there are tasters – from seasoned tasters to novices – who can detect two or three aromas, or even dozens. It may be lack of experience or ability in some, or of excellence and culture in others, or even of parosmia (the sensation of detecting smells that aren’t there) or hyperosmia (disorder involving the heightened sense of smell) or a mixture of both, phantosmia. Braggadocio is never ruled out. A friend told me that, during a tasting with a professor, one of those present recognised the scent of goat! And not just any old goat; a goat from the Andes.
The academic scathingly asked him: “From this side of the Andes or the other?” “There are around 30 families of aromas in the aromatic universe. I have seen professionals recognise about 50 scents, in minutes,” says Veronica Bustos, who works in perfumery and training. She stresses the “rigorous training” of perfumers: “Clearly, through constant practice, you can acquire a perfect knowledge of aromatic descriptors. It’s impressive to see wine tastings, of professionals and amateurs, who have not received any olfactory training. The greatest musicians spend years studying musical theory and practising their scales every day.
Why should it be any different for wine professionals and connoisseurs?” In terms of sensitivity, perfumers beat winemakers hands down. A winemaker acquaintance of mine told me of a training with a “nose”, with many imprecise or unidentified containers and samples. In a series of menthols, what one sniffer could recognise might not be recognised by his colleague. It seems there is not just one menthol; just as not all goats smell the same.
This is where tastings become difficult. Just as we learnt the food pyramid at school, there is also a pyramid for wine aromas. It is divided into various levels: primary aromas, from fruit; secondary aromas, from human intervention; and tertiary, the wrinkles of age. There are families: fruit, spices, floral, microbiological, oxidation, sourness, chemicals, earth, wood, caramel, dried fruits, nuts and plants. Each has subcategories and sub-subcategories. Speaking well and beautifully to impress an audience isn’t hard. To aromatically define wine there is some very useful jargon. It works like a three-way bet in the football pools, which in this game can be placed on every match. Take this example: “This wine reveals an aroma of white flowers, hints of spices and red fruits.” It may not seem so, but this sniffer has placed a three-way bet. White flowers? Orange, jasmine, lilies, daisies? Spices? Nutmeg, cinnamon, pepper, cloves? Red fruits? Strawberries, cherries, persimmons, tomato?
PLACES AND MOMENTS
Once, during a master class, I made the audience fall into fits of laughter about a descriptor. We were talking about floral aromas and I said: “It reminds me of a flower box in Óbidos.” It is memory and my inability to distinguish all the elements of the bouquet of that wine.
Veronica Bustos stresses that we store images of plants, fruits, spices, but not necessarily their scents; understanding and feeling are personal. “Perception is the mental interpretation of the sensation. Passionate people are better able to recognise different aromas. Developing the sense of smell is an art and you need the right training. A wine can be good for one person, because it brings to mind a pleasant moment and, for the other, it may mean nothing, or be felt in another way.” What is the point of a wine’s scent?
José Bento dos Santos, producer of Quinta do Monte d’Oiro wines and vice chairman of the International Gastronomy Academy, gives us an answer to this. “Aromas are part of the essence of wine, of its characteristics and personality, they are identifiable and distinguishable. If on the one hand they have this importance, the obsessive attempt at identifying them is not, and nor can it be, a purpose. It is important for all wine lovers to be aware of primary, secondary and tertiary aromas, of their meaning and their role in flavours as a whole, in the constitution of the phenomenon of the, greater or lesser, pleasure of drinking this or that wine.”
He adds: “But to then think that their detailed identification contributes towards this pleasure is a trap, into which many unsuspecting people fall, confusing this marvellous and concordant combination of aroma and flavours of a wine, which cannot engender great satisfaction when drinking it, with the vaunting of analytical wisdom, which has no value in this tasting pleasure. It would be as if you would need to have a detailed understanding of the modes, notes and tempos of the score to appreciate a Beethoven symphony.” João Pedro Araújo, producer in the Vinho Verde (Quinta de San Joanne) and Dão (Quinta da Vegia) regions, points out that aroma allows you to recognise the quality of the fruit and, consequently, the success of the harvest. However, this winegrower believes that it is “dangerous to list aromas, as each consumer finds his own in each wine”.
He says that it is important for oenophiles to recognise aromas, especially in older wines, “synonymous with consumer knowledge and greater ability in knowing how to decipher quality”. Apparently the Portuguese have a dubious relationship with wine. Probably the vast majority like it, although they may not drink it every day or every week. The dubious relationship can be seen in the average cost of the wine they choose. Figures show that 90% of wine sold in Portugal costs less than €5. In the €0.1 to €4.99 bracket, 80% is less than €3. A coffee costs €0.60 and a can of fizzy drink €1.50 – the average value determined by Revista de Vinhos in supermarkets.
Do these 90% take into account the aromas described on the label or by a critic when they buy the wine? “The customer likes to know that wine is light, full-bodied, dry or sweet, acidic, bitter or smooth, etc. He is not so interested in the description of aromas in the nose,” says João Pires, the only Iberian citizen within the restricted group of master sommeliers. Besides that 90%, is aroma description at all important? “It can be, if the exercise of aromatic description is not a show of personal vanity (as in, look how many aromas I can list in this wine), but rather the attempt to suggest its aromatic profile: fresh, ripe, floral, mineral, with more or less wood, etc.
This can help when choosing, either when buying or when matching wine with food,” adds Luís Antunes, wine critic from Revista de Vinhos. João Pires has experience with foodies who are willing to pay for a meal worth the Portuguese minimum wage a few times over. “Yes, there are consumers who prefer fruity wines and who don’t like floral wines or ones denoting spices. But they are not in the majority and it obviously depends on the market. In the case of England, it can become more discerning, as this is a more mature market in terms of consumer know-how,” the sommelier at London’s 2-Michelin-starred restaurant Dinner by Heston.
“The critic plays an educational role of emphasising that drinking a wine without smelling it is ignoring more than half of what it has to offer. In the courses I give I recommend that you should slowly exhale through the nose with the mouth closed, and after swallowing. It is a way of focusing attention on the so-called inner aroma, just as important as the outer aroma, and both forming an important part of the flavour,” adds Luís Antunes. By dint of the size of the company in which he is a winemaker, Óscar Gato has a large palette of aromas. The Adega de Borba processes nine white grape varieties and 10 red varieties. “The more enlightened consumer is looking for different sensations. I think that they are interested in understanding some aromatic/taste differences, and in particular the difference or similarity between grape varieties. They might buy wine using the fruity or floral criteria, or another that they’ve heard of.”
FOCUSING ON AN AROMA
The aromas that best please are sweet ones, just like when we were babies. Fruit comes to mind, with the next seduction perhaps floral, which inspires pleasant moments. Each grape variety has its own characteristics. Touriga Nacional originates from the Dão region and often offers the scent of violents. The region has varietals which powerfully express violets. “Each grape variety has its aromatic DNA and the consumer likes to identify the characteristics.
They choose an Australian Shiraz because they like spices and chocolate, or a Sauvignon from New Zealand, because they like grassy aromas. It doesn’t seem wrong to me to associate a grape variety with a given aromatic profile,” says João Pires. Óscar Gato adds: “We find wine descriptors continually at the table, in food, in a meal, in starters, in main courses and in desserts. This harmony makes sense if there is a connection between wine and gastronomy. It’s true that as wine ages it evolves. As such, the descriptive blurb, about aromatic and taste sensations, should pre
pare the consumer about what they may find when they open the bottle.” So is describing the wine advantageous or restricting? The master sommelier has an answer for us: “From the consumer’s point of view (fundamentally the supermarket-aisle consumer), I think that it is advantageous. Obviously the quality of the wine involves much more; it is far more complex than just listing aromas. If you buy different wines in a UK supermarket that cost £4.99 [€6.30], I can guarantee you that they will all smell and taste practically the same.”
Time changes everything. “Of course, 10 years after a wine has been bottled, the description will need to be reformulated. We normally find major descriptive differences between recently harvested wines and older harvests,” explains Óscar Gato. João Pires reveals that guests sometimes turn away a wine through lack of knowledge of the characteristics brought on by age. “Older wines are not easy wines when it comes to less enlightened consumers, which makes sense. The English market likes wines that aren’t so young. The French market was like that; today it tends to consume younger, fresher wines. Portugal also prefers young wines.
A wine that is older isn’t always easy to understand and can be expensive, whereby some consumer reticence makes sense.” There are also strange creatures: Brettanomyces yeast is responsible for aromas that bring to mind, among other things, bacon, Moroccan leather and stables. Its presence can indicate a lack of hygiene during production. A well-known winemaker once said to me: “Anything that is a flaw around the world is character in France.” It’s true that this yeast likes French wine and that there are people who applaud little horses whinnying inside their glass. If the customer is always right, we should do exactly as they ask: US producers inject Brettanomyces into wine, meaning that they spoil it and up their sales. Ah, the unmistakable smell of money.
