Taste Buds and the Ability to Detect Certain Flavors in Certain Palate Locations

[DaRiv18]

In the closing years of the last century during my introduction to wine, I recall attending a wine "component tasting" seminar.  Instead of wine, i was given like a dozen-or-so test tubes each filled with concentrated non-alcoholic liquids that represented the bare element of a certain wine trait.  The contents of one test tube represented what structure tanin provided, for example.  

Do "they" still do these types of tastings?  I recall some wine rep put this particular seminar together at the request of the wine bar's request.

[Count Bobulescu]

I suspect you're referring to a variation on the UC Davis Wine Wheel.

Good for academic use, but personally I find it overwhelming to attempt to discern how many components I could identify in any given wine.and prefer to rely on my honker and taste buds, neither of which is particularly sensitive. So don't take my advice.

 

Good ( age worthy ) wine should have an appropriate balance of acid, fruit, and tannin. After that it becomes very subjective.

 

UC Davis Wine Wheel

[ktmoomau]

2 hours ago, DaRiv18 said:

In the closing years of the last century during my introduction to wine, I recall attending a wine "component tasting" seminar.  Instead of wine, i was given like a dozen-or-so test tubes each filled with concentrated non-alcoholic liquids that represented the bare element of a certain wine trait.  The contents of one test tube represented what structure tanin provided, for example.  

Do "they" still do these types of tastings?  I recall some wine rep put this particular seminar together at the request of the wine bar's request.

I was just talking to Hubby as his Father is really good at describing wines, and he was surprised that given how good I am with smelling and tasting individual elements when cooking and tasting food, that I wasn't as good with wine.  He was saying that there was likely something you learn to be able to be better at describing and identifying elements of wine.  I would love to do this sort of thing.

[weezy]

40 minutes ago, ktmoomau said:

I was just talking to Hubby as his Father is really good at describing wines, and he was surprised that given how good I am with smelling and tasting individual elements when cooking and tasting food, that I wasn't as good with wine.  He was saying that there was likely something you learn to be able to be better at describing and identifying elements of wine.  I would love to do this sort of thing.

This is something I would like to do as well.

[DaRiv18]

1 hour ago, Count Bobulescu said:

UC Davis Wine Wheel

Actually, it followed more of a map of taste receptors on the tongue.  The seminar 's approach wasn't flavored based, which I agree is subjective and I am bad at identifying.  This was more about understanding how to appreciate a structure of a wine.  On what parts of the tongue do you best identify certain elements?  It sounded like an awfully simplistic exploration of sweet, bitter, acid, etc., but it was a really cool event.  

[Mark Slater]

7 hours ago, DaRiv18 said:

In the closing years of the last century during my introduction to wine, I recall attending a wine "component tasting" seminar.  Instead of wine, i was given like a dozen-or-so test tubes each filled with concentrated non-alcoholic liquids that represented the bare element of a certain wine trait.  The contents of one test tube represented what structure tanin provided, for example.  

Do "they" still do these types of tastings?  I recall some wine rep put this particular seminar together at the request of the wine bar's request.

Look up Le Nez Du Vin. Its available from Amazon. It contains vials of chemical that reproduce the various aromas faithfully. Its a home component tasting. 

[Mark Slater]

Certain terms convey more information than others. 'Oaky" conveys one quality, "mouthfeel" means more than one thing. Mouthfeel indicates the acid isn't agressive, the fruit and tannin are in balance. Its one of those terms that is obvious when you come across it. My favorite one is "Petrichor", it was described to me first as the smell of light rain on a warm forest floor. This can describe many things, savory, funky, grassy. The most obtuse wine description I ever read in a review was "crushed white stones".

[porcupine]

17 hours ago, DaRiv18 said:

Actually, it followed more of a map of taste receptors on the tongue.  The seminar 's approach wasn't flavored based, which I agree is subjective and I am bad at identifying.  This was more about understanding how to appreciate a structure of a wine.  On what parts of the tongue do you best identify certain elements?  It sounded like an awfully simplistic exploration of sweet, bitter, acid, etc., but it was a really cool event.  

No offense, but... bullshit.

Challenging the Tongue Taste Map

The Taste Map of the Tongue You Learned in School Is All Wrong

[DaRiv18]

I am not trying to defend the tongue map itself, just saying that the component tasting is less about the UC Davis flavor wheel and more about understanding wine structure by learning how to identify acid, tanin, etc. 

yes, at that tasting we were shown that acid is more sensitive on the sides of the tongue. I don’t think those articles contradict that, they just don’t like the tongue map drawing.  

The component tasting was in some ways like this video, except we were not trying to evaluate any specific wines comparatively, it was more what is tanin and how do you taste it?

https://www.northernbrewer.com/blogs/wine-time/wine-component-tasting

[Count Bobulescu]

This is a double posting of a long piece. The relevant except for this thread is below.

Quote

Many wine professionals believe that the size and shape of a glass affects a wine’s flavor, but none can quite explain how. Those who ventured a guess during these interviews inevitably invoked the tongue map, that age-old diagram that carves the tongue into tasting zones: sweet in the front, bitter in the back, salty and sour on the sides. One sommelier even suggested that glasses could influence a wine’s flavor by directing it to a particular part of the palate.

The problem with that logic is that the tongue map is complete bunk.

“There is no tongue map for the human,” asserts Dr. Linda Bartoshuk, a sensory scientist at the University of Florida. “The tongue map as we know it originated from a 1940s mistranslation of a 1901 German study.” Though later translations corrected the error, the map has proved a particularly sticky form of pseudoscience, and it continues to be taught to wine students. Dr. Bartoshuk’s lab has studied taste on different tongue areas and concluded that, contrary to popular belief, “you can taste all four basic tastes everywhere there are taste buds. Some variation may occur, but it’s trivial. There was never any empirical data for a tongue map.”

Wine Glass: Form, Function, & Fragilty

[Mark Slater]

The Riedel Rule: Use 4 glasses, get 3 back. 

[Count Bobulescu]

22 hours ago, Mark Slater said:

The Riedel Rule: Use 4 glasses, get 3 back. 

Even with the Restaurant Series?

[Mark Slater]

20 minutes ago, Count Bobulescu said:

Even with the Restaurant Series?

Always