"Joseph Coulter" > wrote in message
...
> On Fri, 20 Nov 2009 08:32:48 +1000, "Martin Field"
> > wrote:
>
>>
>>"DaleW" > wrote in message
...
>>On Nov 19, 7:21 am, "JT" > wrote:
>>> "Ed Rasimus" > wrote in message
>>>
>>> ...
>>>
>
>
>>Dale - I'm with you. 1. No you're not deluding yourself - I had a Thai
>>curry recently and as well as overall impressions, at the same and at
>>different times I could distinctly detect a multiplicity of aromas and
>>tastes: acidity, tartness, sweetness, lemon grass, ginger, basil, shallot,
>>garlic, coconut, chili, fresh turmeric, tomato etc. (I gather that what
>>most
>>of us call taste is actual
>>
>>One only has to read of the great "noses" in the perfume industry (Google
>>"Luca Turin: for some lucid and brilliant writing on this) to know that
>>they
>>can detect myriad natural and synthetic aromas in perfume blends. (More
>>than
>>four anyway.)
>>
>>However, I am not suggesting here that listing a whack of detected aromas
>>is
>>helpful to readers or listeners, I also tend to keep my descriptors in a
>>note to just a few.
>>
>>Cheers!
>>
>>Martin
> I think that there is a difference in edetecting the aroma of basil
> for instance in Thai food and an esoteric descriptor such as leather
> in a wine. In the first case you are detecting what you identify, in
> the other you are creating a simile to help describe a wine. One
> descriptor is "real" the other is "synthetic".
> Joseph Coulter
> Joseph Coulter Cruises and Vacations
> www.josephcoulter.com

But some of the things we smell and taste in wine can be pinned down in the
bouquet or taste as derived from actual components or winemaking processes.-
eg, alcohol, rasinins (dried sweet grapes) in a fortified muscat, smoky
savour (charred barrels), wood, vanilla (from oak vanillin), butteriness -
from diacetyl via malolactic fermentation, citrus - citric acid?, acids,
sugars, yeast/products ie baked bread, (sauvignon blanc characteristic), VA
(acetic acid), acetaldehyde (sherry like oxidation) sulphur, TCA
(corkiness), malic (ie "apple") acid etc. etc.

I suggest that your esoteric descriptions are not synthetic as such but
rather attempts by tasters to use associative, analogous terms to best
describe the complex aromas and flavours they find in a wine.

For instance, if someone says they find grean pea or green pepper aspects in
a sauvignon blanc is this synthetic? (they all contain methoxypyrazines).
Same applies if someone calls a wooded chardonnay soft and buttery (buttery
from from malolactic fermentation) or like buttered popcorn. Cinema popcorn
is often flavoured with artificial butter compounds ie with the diacetyl
mentioned above.

The point I was trying to make with the Thai food example is that I believe
that people can taste and describe quite a number of components in wine.
Whether these descriptions are actually identifiable, derived from actual
processes or components or associative is beside the point in my opinion.
The descriptors are merely an attempt to communicate the taster's
impressions.

Some of these associations are helpful to others - some not.

Mind you, when I hear wine descriptors like feminine, alluring, dark and
mysterious etc. I want to puke...

Cheers!

Martin