Taste and smells of wine

Developments in explaining the taste and smell of wines

Pretorius, I. S., de Barros Lopes, M. A., Francis, I. L., Swiegers, J. H., & Hoj, P . B. (2004, July-August). The genomics of taste and smell - Cracking the codes that determine who likes what on the palate and on the nose. ANZWIJ, 19(4), 13-18.

If winemakers were able to ascertain why potential consumers were more receptive to certain tastes and smells they might be able to use this information to target potential business opportunities.

As well as there being cultural and learn't aspects to what is liked and disliked there could well be genetic factors as well. It has been found that the taste and smell receptors constitute the largest gene family in the human genome.

The human race relies more on sight and sound than many other mammalian species and as a consequence the senses of smell and taste are as not as well developed in humans and contain fewer active receptor genes than in some other mammalian species such as the mouse.

The human genome contains many mutated odour receptor genes that are non functional.

The sense of taste is only capable of identifying the 5 basic taste sensations - sweet, sour, salty bitter and umami.

Because poisons are often linked to bitter compounds the sense for these compounds is more developed and more selective than the sense of sweet and umami. For bitter compounds there exist 25 functional genes and for sweet and umami only 3.

The sense of smell is much more developed with there being as many as 1000 odour receptor genes identified. Each odour receptor cell expresses only a single odour receptor which in turn leads to each odour transmitting a single signal to the brain. They can however bind to bind to multiple odourants. In addition some odorants have the ability to block olfactory receptors.

The variation between individuals is related to the range of mutated non functional odour receptor genes they carry. In addition to the variation between individuals there appears to be variations due to ethnicity as well and this may be the basis for targetting specific markets.

As well as the senses of taste and smell the sense of vision, memory and mood also influence the individuals' perception of foods and beverages.

While science has come closer to understanding the processes relating to the likes and dislikes there is still much research required before the subject will be fully understood.