” Olfaction sessions: a new tool for wine professionals “
Introduction
How can you tell the difference between “cedar” and “sandalwood” in a wine? How do you distinguish a floral note when you have no knowledge of flower scents? What is a musk chevrotin scent? What do the terms “balsamic” or “empyreumatic” mean? Olfaction aims to answer all these questions. It’s a training program that precedes wine tasting, to help professionals create solid olfactory references within themselves.
Working in isolation, the wine’s descriptors have a chance of knowing them perfectly, which is why the work is carried out using scent samples. We have images of plants, spices or fruit, but we don’t really know their smells. By describing all their aromatic facets, we learn to master them and fix them in our memory. Cinnamon, for example, is spicy, woody, leathery, sweet, powdery, almondy, drying, round, warm, resinous, sometimes pharmaceutical and camphorated. Isobutyl methoxypyrazine, responsible for the vegetal note of certain wines, develops green facets, evoking the crudeness of certain vegetables, peppers, bean pods, green beans, but also slightly earthy, like asparagus.
It’s only when we’re fully aware of these cues that we can identify them within the aromatic complexity of the wine. Without this prior openness to their true knowledge, tasting appears random. Olfaction sessions have a dual purpose: to structure our olfactory universe, and to learn how to describe odors using the full wealth of vocabulary at our disposal. Memorizing is above all learning to describe. Aromas are an aggregate of molecules, which is why the aromatic universe is so complex. When we perceive a blackcurrant aroma in a Merlot, or a raspberry note in a Pinot Noir, this impression is caused by the addition of twenty or thirty different molecules.
A few rare molecules, such as geraniol, β-ionone and isobutyl methoxypyrazine, to name but a few, are alone responsible for the clear, distinct odors in a wine’s aromatic bouquet. It’s easy to study them in isolation, and to memorize them. For the rest, the question is more subtle. A tiny variation in the composition of these molecular clusters, and the aroma that escapes from the glass of wine reveals new nuances. Wine is so magical and complex that it can be said to contain an infinite number of different blackcurrant or raspberry aromas. The blackcurrant aroma perceived in one bottle will not be the same as in another. The grape variety, the blend, the soil qualities, the climate, the ageing wood or even the oxygenation that precedes serving the wine, will all have an impact on the olfactory variability of this aroma. Sometimes it appears more or less ripe, green, sweet, acidic, sweet, acrid, pungent, round, sulphurous, full-bodied, dry, evoking memories of liqueur, brandy, jam, jelly, sorbet, sour sweets, syrup, coulis, custard, fresh fruit, dried berries, blackcurrant leaves, etc., etc., etc.
Perception also depends on personal experience. It calls on memories, representations and image associations that differ from one individual to another. Indeed, we all have our own idea of what blackcurrant aroma is. The reference that is created deep within us is not the same from one individual to the next. Finally, should we add that each taster has a different olfactory apparatus? That we don’t have the same perception thresholds? As you can see, learning about wine aromas is like squaring a circle.
In such conditions, how can we work on and develop our sense of smell? Our olfaction sessions offer the answer. Let’s continue our example, and ask a wine lover to smell Absolue Bourgeons de cassis on a piece of paper, and to tell us his impressions. In so doing, he will in fact be expressing the differences and similarities he perceives between his own cassis benchmark, the one contained in the intimacy of his memory, and Absolue Bourgeons de cassis. This exercise has a double impact. On the one hand, the taster forms a more precise idea of his own conception of the blackcurrant aroma, and on the other, he adds a new reference to the stock of scents stored in his brain: Absolue Bourgeons de cassis. Imagine we asked him to comment on two new blackcurrant-type scents: an aroma used by the food industry and 4MMP. With these two new olfactions, the taster will begin in earnest to consolidate his knowledge of the fruity note under study. In just a few minutes, he’ll have memorized 3 new blackcurrant-type cues.
Actually, not quite. Because to fully understand a scent, we need to know all its aromatic facets, all its aspects. This knowledge can only be acquired through regular practice. In fact, the wine lover will need to smell these three new scents again, probably several times, to fully memorize them. These are not the only benefits for the wine taster. Olfaction also enables us to adjust and enrich our vocabulary. This last point is particularly important, since in tasting, we need to be able to express in words all the sensory differences we experience. Through constant, persistent and guided olfactory practice, we can acquire a perfect knowledge of the aromatic descriptors of wines. It’s remarkable to note that wine professionals and enthusiasts alike taste without ever having received a proper olfactory education. The best musicians spend years studying music theory and practicing scales on a daily basis. Why should it be any different for wine professionals, who use their sense of smell every day?
Sensation and Perception
“The formation of memory is never posterior to that of perception, it is contemporary with it” Bergson.
It’s a common misconception that the verbs “smell” and “perceive” are synonymous. In fact, they correspond to two distinct stages of olfaction.
Excitement and Sensation
In emotional life, “sensation” plays a crucial, essentially regulatory role. It is triggered by the “excitation” of a sensory nerve. Its action is to encourage the individual to adapt psychologically to the external conditions of his environment. Excitement is the result of effective “stimulation”. But the excitation generated may itself remain ineffective if it is not transmitted to the regulatory systems on which sensory reactions depend. This is what happens when the optic nerve is severed: light can still excite receptor cells in the retina, but this local reaction is not transmitted to the regulatory centers. It will therefore have no influence on the individual’s overall behavior or adaptation.
To experience the sensation of an odor, we need the action of olfactory stimulation which, by provoking a local, fleeting but effective change, causes the receptor cells of the sense of smell to become excited. This reaction must then be translated and transmitted by a nervous message to the medulla oblongata and the various higher brain centers. This process takes place almost instantaneously. The complexity of this infinitely subtle interplay is heightened by the variability of human receptors. Indeed, physiologists describe the nature and number of receptors in the olfactory system as significantly different from one individual to another. So it should come as no surprise that not all olfactory systems react in the same way. But while a physiological cause cannot be ruled out, the importance of the psychological factors responsible for a large proportion of these variations has long been underestimated.
The 4MMP (4-mercapto-4-methylpentan-2-one) identified in many white grape varieties, and particularly in Sauvignon blanc, highlights these psychological factors. The molecule presents simultaneous or successive odors of boxwood, blackcurrant buds, cat’s pee, wild herbs, citrus fruit and grapefruit zest. If several individuals are asked to smell 4MMP, their attention will not be focused on the same facet. Each will follow his or her natural inclination and latch on to a cue that has struck him or her in particular; the citrus scent of wild herbs, for example. If we draw his attention to another facet, the smell of blackcurrants, he’ll end up noticing it too. Step by step, guiding his olfaction with pictorial descriptions, we’ll get him to make a complete inventory of the smell, and eventually he’ll have a global view of it that’s quite similar to ours.
This requires a level of attention and concentration that not everyone is prepared to give. This is often the reason for believing that sensory systems function differently. While it’s true that not all individuals have identical olfactory receptors, they do have very similar ones. So we shouldn’t blame physiological differences for what must be attributed to inattention, fatigue, lack of practice or lack of knowledge. If the importance of psychological factors in the use of the sense of smell has been neglected for so long, it’s because of the studies carried out in the past on animals, whose experiments focused on instinctive reactions, less thoughtful than those of man. In fact, the central element that concerns us here – the transformation of perception through education or voluntary training – was not emphasized.
Sensation and Perception
The sense of smell provides us with the sensation of odors, i.e. the response to a stimulus made to the sensory organ. The aroma of a wine arises when a few molecules floating in the air above the surface of the glass come into contact with some of the millions of receptor cells in our olfactory system. This contact triggers a series of chemical and electrical operations, creating a nervous message transmitted to the brain. Sensation is a somewhat passive physiological process. Perception is the mental interpretation of sensation. It is an active process, which follows on from sensation, and must therefore be considered separately. It is an intellectual act, involving the higher functions of consciousness, memory and image associations, and is dependent on personal experience and education.
This makes it easy to understand the structuring role of the first sensations experienced by infants, and the behavioral consequences that follow in adult life. Certain irrepressible attractions or repulsions to certain types of odors can only be explained by reference to vivid sensations experienced in early childhood. Conscious olfactory perception is alert and analytical. When tasting wine, it is organized around the principle of differentiating observed aromas and classifying them by degree of relevance. It refers each aromatic element to a series of comparative sources: scents of fruit, flowers, wood, spices and so on.
The brain’s mental structure is based on the sense of sight. For every 100 items of sensory information reaching the brain, 60 to 65 come from sight, 20 to 25 from hearing, 10 to 15 from touch, and just one from taste or smell. Our way of thinking is essentially visual. This is why abstraction – mathematics, for example – poses so many problems in early education. When we taste a wine, we shouldn’t be surprised that an image appears more or less spontaneously after the sensation. It prolongs it. To recognize the aroma of a wine is precisely to call up these images stored in our memory, to try to evoke them voluntarily. Images can be visual, acoustic, olfactory, gustatory, tactile or thermal. The way perception works, since it refers to these memory images, is by confrontation. We draw from all our references the image closest possible to the aroma we are identifying.
Sometimes, the representation that comes to mind is not precise enough, as if we were stopping along the way to identifying an aroma. Let’s imagine that a taster perceives a citrus note, an impression of aromatic plants, when shaking a glass of dry white wine. Continuing his analysis, he describes it as slightly aniseed-like. The most common referents in the aniseed range are dill, tarragon, green anise, fennel (tops or bulbs) and star anise. The images that populate his mind can be endless: slices of fennel thrown onto the coals when grilling fish, a glass of pastis, tarragon stalks in his grandparents’ garden, sour sweets, and so on.
For the same wine, a second taster will perceive a minty or even mentholated note. Because he’s more sensitive to the impression of freshness that the wine gives him, his judgment will contain a different field of images containing this somaesthetic element. Menthol family referents include peppermint, spearmint, spearmint, spearmint or wild mint. Its representation can therefore logically stop between menthol and peppermint, which also has a mentholated facet. On both counts, our two tasters are convinced of the validity of their analysis. But all it takes is a third, more experienced taster to show them that they’ve only “seen” one aspect of the aroma in question. Let’s assume that the best possible descriptor of the aroma perceptible in this wine is caraway. This referent contains both an aniseed and minty facet (due to the presence of carvone). Enough to make our two tasters agree. In this case, their aromatic description was not precise enough. No doubt due to a lack of knowledge, despite the fact that this seed sometimes accompanies cheese (munster or gouda) or is found in certain alcoholic beverages (aquavit, schnapps), or in many Eastern and Northern European meat dishes, or even in Indian cuisine.
But let’s return to our example. This time, let’s assume that the aromatic element of the wine described by our two tasters is actually a licorice note. On the one hand, menthol is part of the licorice aroma. On the other hand, tasters often confuse aniseed and licorice aromas. If the wine in question has been aged in oak barrels, our example is all the more convincing, as toasting a barrel can produce cyclotene, a molecule known for its intense licorice aroma. In this case, our two tasters are only halfway there, and it’s only when a third taster points out the licorice note that they realize the gap between their own impression and the aroma objectively present in the wine. The role of olfactory education is precisely to give tasters the sharpest possible weapons to increase their olfactory acuity, to give them all the bridges that exist from one aroma to another.
Syncretic perception
Let’s continue our example. A fourth taster looks at the same wine. As he inhales the aromas from the glass, a memory of summer unexpectedly springs to mind. He sees himself sitting on the terrace of a restaurant at dusk. Nearby, a fishing port, shipwrecks in refit. His impression is confused and all-encompassing; he can’t make out any particular element. Yet the white wine he’s tasting takes him back to that exact moment in his life. In a manner of speaking, he smells it. What our taster first perceives is the context of this memory, the well-being of his carefree, post-adolescent years, before life forced him to take on more responsibility. The image that first comes to mind is the overall vision of a whole, before any distinction of olfactory elements.
Then, organizing his sensations, our taster becomes aware that, during this period of his life, he sometimes sipped a cocktail made with anisette and mint. This singular perception, which calls for an initial undifferentiation of things before they are analytically distinguished, is called syncretic. Unconsciously, the memory of the smell has been combined with an affective element. This is why such images explode within us with such intensity. Our taster will be tempted to share this representation with other tasters, but unfortunately for him/her, the power of sharing such impressions is almost nil. This explains why some tasters launch into extremely lyrical comments. Often, all they get in return is a sympathetic smile from the other tasters.
Perception and Judgment
The images we conjure up are tinged with appreciation and criticism. There are appetizing or nauseating smells, wine aromas belonging to the register of defects or that of qualities. To perceive an aroma is to note its presence and judge it. Ethyl-4-phenol is a molecule that can appear in red wines when used or new barrels are used, and is linked to the appearance of Brettanomyces. Its musky, leathery notes evoke stables and horse sweat, as well as gouache, plasters and bandages. It also has floral, jasmine-like aspects. It is usually classified as a leather note. It’s easy to confuse it with a leather aroma resulting from wine aging, more subtle, delicate, flirting with tobacco facets. It’s easy to see why it’s so important to know how to distinguish between these two different types of leather aroma, one of which wine professionals consider undesirable, while the other contributes to the wine’s aromatic complexity. Judgment is a subjective phenomenon, and cannot escape the taster’s olfactory education. This is why a judgment can be erroneous, whereas sensation – a reflex state – cannot be.
The more regular our olfactory activity, the greater the benefit we can derive from it; the greater our education, the greater our reserve of references. This is why, if everyone smells, everyone perceives more or less, and more or less well. It should come as no surprise, then, that tasters can experience very similar sensations and yet judge them differently. All it takes is for one person’s mind to be less active, less rich in images, less trained to judge, and therefore less able to perceive.