Is the way we think and talk about wine a form of cultural colonialism that hampers our ability to enjoy what’s in the glass? A provocative question, but stick with me.
Whether or not you subscribe to old guard publications like Wine Spectator, the wine notes you’re most familiar with — and probably utilize yourself when describing wine — tread a well-worn path featuring fruits, flowers, spices, herbs and earth/animal notes that are deeply familiar to Western palates. But critics and winemakers can only offer notes that correspond with their personal experience, and the fact is, most prominent critics and winemakers were raised on a steady Western diet. That’s the big picture, in a nutshell. But there are other considerations.
“What about someone raised in a place that has 10 different types of bananas, all of which taste completely differently, or 20 types of citrus?” wonders Adam Casto, winemaker at Ehlers Estate in Napa. “The banana or mandarin that serves as a reference point for many of us would be completely useless and possibly even unproductive for them.”
That would be reason enough to change the way he thought about tasting and discussing wine. But that’s just one element of a broader journey that he and many other wine professionals are embarking on that could radically reset the way we taste and assess the flavor of wine — and everything else, for that matter.
It all stems from a book by the late neuroscientist Gordon M. Shepherd, who broke down in layman’s terms how the brain creates the taste of wine and how each individual’s personal experiences in the world shape their perceptions. The book, Neuroenology: How the Brain Creates the Taste of Wine, is a cult hit in wonkier wine circles.
Neurology has become one of the most exciting fields of science for anyone curious about the nature of what makes us human. One of the most fascinating subsets of neurology involves the study of brain activity, which helps us better understand how language is processed and decisions are made.
Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI), invented in the early 1990s, allows scientists to explore and analyze how we taste, which brain regions are activated during the tasting experience and how that affects our perception of said tastes. In the process, neuroscientists have also proven, once and for all (I hope!), that tasting wine stimulates more areas of your brain than solving complex math problems. (Just to be clear, the science proves that tasting — actually smelling, tasting and analyzing — wine, as opposed to thoughtlessly guzzling it, is more of a brain exercise than advanced trig.)
The science of how flavor is perceived
Wine — or really anything we drink or eat — does not inherently contain flavor. It contains flavor molecules that our brain surveys and interprets through a complex behavioral system that holds our memories, perceptions, emotions, language and decision-making prowess. Every time smell and flavor data gets evaluated in your frontal lobe, it’s compared with thousands of other smell and flavor experiences you’ve had.
Much of our ability to perceive flavor depends on our nose. Once you have that cab in your mouth, most of the flavor you’re experiencing comes from retronasal, or internal smelling...
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