Tim James: Idiosyncrasies of smell and taste

By , 23 July 2024

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It’s salutary to be reminded occasionally that as wine-drinkers we are – up to a point, or beyond a point – alone. That is, with a shared bottle on our table, we are, if not each drinking a different wine, then at least drinking the same wine very slightly, or more substantially, differently. I was reminded of this twice recently on the same day, on a visit to the Swartland.

Firstly, during a splendid vertical tasting of the Mullineux Granite Syrah (from the maiden 2010, still drinking excellently, to the current 2022), that formidable winemaker and taster Andrea Mullineux was prompted to remark that she was one of the 30% or so of people who cannot smell (and therefore cannot taste) rotundone, the chemical compound that gives the peppery character so often noted by the other 70% in some syrahs, and also a few other, lesser varieties. (See here for an approachable article on the subject.)

I too am somewhere in that deprived category, which can make one feel rather inadequate in some tasting circles when the highfalutin chat is of black pepper or white, and occasionally pink, roasted or freshly crushed, or whatever. For me the lack is partial (I get an associated spiciness) and is more in smelling than tasting. In fact there’s a favourite Ottolenghi recipe of mine for Chinese-ish hot and spicy tofu, which calls for five tablespoons of crushed peppercorns – with just 800 grams of tofu as the main ingredient. I decided after making it that way that, so peppery was the result, that it must surely be a misprint for five teaspoons, and even that is not a little.

As for rotundone’s effect, it has been said by researchers that “If you were to add just one drop to an Olympic-sized swimming pool, the water would taste of pepper”. Well, not to me, or not much. Interestingly, it seems that rotundone is also present in the essential oils of marjoram, oregano, rosemary, basil, and thyme, so perhaps others are finding a tinge of pepperiness in those wonderful herbs that escapes some of us.

But with winetasting one learns to somehow adapt – there’s hopefully plenty else in the syrah. Andrea (no inadequacies there) says that she has learnt to identify other characteristics in a wine that usually accompany other peoples’ finding of pepperiness. She and I, however, share another tasting characteristic that’s a more fundamental and seriously divisive one – as was revealed at a moderately bibulous dinner that evening with Eben and Magriet Sadie (also sons Markus and Xander and the two young women they are to marry), in the grand new building.

This second example, though, was one more purely of taste than smell. It came with a bottle that Chris Mullineux brought, a 2019 Syrah from Hors Categorie Vineyard in the Walla Walla Valley in Oregon. The aromas were deliciously inviting and complex, but as soon as I’d taken a sip I reacted almost violently, so unpleasantly bitter it was. I couldn’t bear to try any more.

The dining table was fairly evenly divided, with perhaps the minority (I can’t remember the exact numbers) finding the wine intensely and unpleasantly bitter. The others, including Chris and Eben, liked the wine very much and couldn’t understand what the bitterness-finders were talking about. In fact, I think Eben was at first a bit disbelieving (which he might have stayed if it were just me, but you don’t argue with Andrea about such things) and then just a bit miffed at the idea there was a wine sensation he was insensitive to! Chris made the important point that he was certainly not immune to experiencing bitterness – it was this specific bitterness that escaped him, even when he looked to find it. I myself am always very sensitive to all bitterness – I find straight espresso coffee difficult to take, for that reason.

Are there different kinds of bitterness? Or is it that bitterness as such presents differently with some other compound we don’t know in this case to take into account? If you Google the name of the Walla Walla wine plus “bitterness”, you get some very negative and some more neutral (“bitter tea“, “bitter herbs”) notes. (Hors Categorie Syrah is extremely expensive, by the way, so presumably most winelovers don’t find the awful bitterness.) Perhaps there’s a range of experienced intensity, as there is for me with pepperiness.

Andrea thinks the cause of this wine’s bitterness is Pediococcus bacteria, one of the micro-organisms that conduct wine’s malolactic fermentation (the second fermentation, that usually happens spontaneously after the alcoholic fermentation, but can be prevented or induced). It’s known that spoilage, specifically bitterness, is not uncommonly caused by Pediococcus. (See here for some of the science.) One presumes that this Walla Walla winery has the stuff clinginging to every surface, ready to attack, and that it has successfully welcomed it as part of its claim to be “beyond a category”. And some deeply knowledgeable people greatly admire the wine! I’m not aware of any research into just how common revulsion is, to the specific wine or to this kind of bitterness in general (if indeed “kind of bitterness” is a meaningful scientific category)…

The complexities of smell and taste.

So, then, just a reminder for when you read these professional tasting notes that reel off a more or less meaningless list of some or many aromas and flavours (I think this style of note is an American invention that has unfortunately become pervasive) – some of those characters, at least, you might be less sensitive to than the taster. Who, in turn, might have a different degree of sensitivity to the chemical compounds that press little buttons in your mouth. I even suspect, from my own experience, that findings related to bitterness, sweetness,  and acidity, as well as flavours, can vary from day to day, perhaps with salivary flow. 

Perhaps the wonder is that we can ever agree about anything at all in wine. It’s a funny business, after all.

  • Tim James is one of South Africa’s leading wine commentators, contributing to various local and international wine publications. His book Wines of South Africa – Tradition and Revolution appeared in 2013.

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