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70 p r a c t i c a l w i n e r y & v i n e ya r d a p r i l 2 0 1 4 b o o k e x c e r p t Bringing Artisan Beer, Wine and Spirits to Market Everything post-production to make your craft beverage stand out. Now there's an all-new, completely unique conference and expo that's focused 100% on giving you the specifi c tools, strategies, suppliers and connections you need to bring your craft beverages competitively to market. If you want to get your product out there where it belongs, get here fi rst. M A Y 6 - 8 , 2 0 1 4 | S A N J O S E C O N V E N T I O N C E N T E R R E G I S T E R T O D A Y A T www.CraftBeverageExpo.com. • Smells, also known as aromas, odors or scents, are sniffed through the nose. This is what most people think of when they think of their sense of smell. • Flavors are the smells we perceive when odors enter through the mouth when we eat or drink, instead of the nose. We may think of these as "tastes," but the vehicle is "olfaction," our sense of smell. Wine flavors seem stronger and more diverse than wine smells, because body heat in the mouth increases the volatility of aroma com- pounds. Wine will always seem more intense and complex if we don't swal- low immediately. • Tastes, technically speaking, are sen- sations perceived by the tastebuds of the tongue — a very limited lineup of only sweetness, saltiness, sourness, bitterness, umami and nothing else. Although people often talk about "tast- ing" flavors like chocolate, raspberry or beef, these flavor sensations cannot be recognized with the tongue's tastebuds alone and are therefore not truly tastes. With these definitions in mind, the importance of aroma in wine tasting becomes apparent. Without our sense of smell, we cannot tell the difference between the taste of chocolate and vanilla ice cream. The relationship between fla- vor and aroma helps explain why food seems so bland when we are congested; with no airflow through our nose, we lose all sense of olfactory flavor and can detect only the five tastebud tastes. For most everything else besides wine appreciation, whether a flavor is techni- cally a taste or a smell is utterly irrele- vant. However, in the world of wine, it is a critical distinction and one of the first concepts beginners must learn. Tastes and smells are caused by different chemi- cal components. Sugars and acids form the major tastes, while esters and alde- hydes are the backbone of olfactory smells and flavors. In order to discuss wine properly, professionals must dissect the wine tasting experience into compo- nent parts. Talking about smells Unfortunately, talking about a wine's smells is no easy task. Tastes are rudimen- tary and easily described, but on the olfac- tory front, we have more sensory capacity than we have vocabulary. The average person can distinguish more than 10,000 different smells but would be hard- pressed to name more than a few dozen. To complicate matters, many smells we think are distinct are really combinations of others. For example, the flavor we rec- ognize as "bubblegum" is a mashup of wintergreen and vanilla, with a touch of cinnamon. Since our sense of smell is directly linked to memories of experiences and emotions, smells are highly subjective. One person might associate bananas with freshly peeled bananas, while another might think more of baked banana bread.