The Nose
The Nose, the sharpest of all our senses. It helps
us determine our preferences, likes and dislikes, yet...
We don't make it work for us! It has become lazy! What can we do about
it?
Smelling the wine is such an important part of the
tasting process that the traditional hierarchy of the senses is reversed
(usually sight and hearing are 200 times as important) the nose is essential
to the perception of wine.
Direct and retro-nasal olfaction
The taster uses both his nose and his mouth to smell because all the
elements that are perceived via the nose (the smell of wine in the glass)
and via the retro-nasal passage (its aroma on the palate) combine and
complement one another… and provide 90% of the pleasure of tasting!
(remember you won't be able to taste anything at all if you have a cold).
The olfactive epithelium is located at the top of the nasal passage.
It is a tissue with a surface area of 3 to 4 cm2 covered with a mucus
containing receptor cells.
Each cell has some twenty fibres whose surface carries approximately
one million proteic receptors per square micron.
A scent molecule acts like a chemical signal which when it arrives at
the end of the nasal passage, dissolves in the mucus, combining with
the receptor proteins; a host of reactions follows, instantly transforming
this chemical message into an electrical one which is reflected like
an image on the olfactory bulb.
Imagine that the olfactory bulb corresponds to the retina in the eye
and that the image of the odour on the bulb corresponds to the picture
of an object on the retina.
This image is then handled by the deepest areas of our brain and reduced
to its contours in the pyriform cortex, committed to memory and compared
to others in the temporal lobe, catalogued, then associated with a pleasurable
experience in the far lateral hypothalamus.
|
We learn gradually how to put a name to certain scents
and should learn to identify them by practising. This is the training
our sense of smell needs that society does not give us but the Nez du
Vin does.
Today, thanks to the Nez du Vin, we can all be or become tasters. Millions
of wine lovers are learning to develop their scent memory and are beginning
to learn about the aromas in wine in the same way as they would a foreign
language. Learning with the Nez du Vin is simple, fun and open to everyone.In
just a few months you will have acquired all the necessary abilities
to appreciate, comment upon and judge wines.
The Nez du Vin is a perfect way of training your scent memory. Keep
it close at hand, get it out of the cupboard, get comfortable, take
a sniff, inhale the collection of aromas, nourish your scent memory.
Admit it, you didn't know you had been missing so much!
Play the game, and you will be surprised to realise just how many aromas
there are in wine.
Practise regularly and concentrate (try not to consult the key). Try
to put a name to each of the aromas, categorize them, then check and
go over the ones that you could not identify the day before. After a
few months, or a few weeks even, you will have no problem pinpointing,
recognising and naming the aromas.
This will come with practice. Once you've begun you'll soon be able
to recognise the characteristic scent of a grape variety, a terroir,
or the way a wine is made etc. and you will realise that each wine is
unique. A satisfying result!
|
