The aromas, tastes and ages

Gray hair and wrinkles are inevitable signs of age. And how the time influences our senses of smell and taste? Elin McCoy lifts the veil of science and figuring out how to make it so that the wine never ceased to give us pleasure.

When she turned 60, Joe Diaz is a California journalist, writing about wine – began to notice that her perception of aromas during the wine tastings began to change. Now she is 68 and she needs more time to recognize the components of wine aroma. “Now I have five times to spin the glass to capture what was once caught with a single breath. But the fun has become greater,” she says.

We want to believe that the pleasure of a glass of wine will be available for us at any age. After all, our skills as a taster, over time, become better, isn’t it?

With age, hair turns gray, skin wrinkles, and vision and hearing often become worse – is it any wonder that the ability to perceive the taste and aroma is also reduced?

If you believe the studies, then part of us are lucky enough to retain most of the abilities that are there now, others have the power of perception will go downhill. These processes are very individual and gradual reduction of sensitivity is not always obvious.

For the sense of smell (olfaction) and taste correspond to the different systems of the body. Each of them has its own receptors and neural connections. But it is difficult to highlight the contribution of one or another system in the General perception of the wine, due to the fact that the smell, taste and tactile sensations in the mouth are inextricably intertwined.

The person feels the 5 basic tastes: sweet, sour, bitter, salty and so-called the taste “umami” (“meat” taste for glutamate, particularly monosodium glutamate, a popular food additive).

About the fifth taste – umami – the controversy has still not subsided, although its existence is officially recognized, in connection with the discovery of certain receptors responsible for perception.

Each of us can count up to 10,000 taste bulbs, zonal concentrated on the tongue, inside the cheeks, on the palate and in the larynx. Each taste bulb contains specialized receptor cells that send signals to the brain.

We are able to capture tens of thousands of different smells, seeing them through a complex mechanism which can easily be broken.

How it all worked was a mystery until the early 1990s when Dr. Richard Axel and Linda Buck, who received a joint Nobel prize in 2004 for his research described the mechanism that provides our sense of smell. Her forefront – 350 aroma receptors located in the upper part of the sinuses.

Aromatic compounds there are thousands, and it only takes one molecule to activate one or more olfactory (related to smell) receptors.

Sensitivity to odors varies greatly from person to person because of tricks of the physiological characteristics. So, some people are “blind” to certain compounds – for example, do not feel Trichloranisole (tube defect).

When they leave feeling

Today it is known that olfactory abilities are damped more strongly than the taste. Sensation of taste is one of the most stable of our senses.

First us starts to leave a bitter taste.

In men, it weakened gradually throughout life, in women, it begins at menopause. Although some studies show that the ability to sense salty weakened is stronger than the feeling of bitter and sweet.

As for the smell, the study in the USA showed that 30% of Americans at the age of 70-80 years and about one third at the age of 80 years and older has a problem with it. And in 2002, deterioration of olfaction were observed in 62.5% of subjects aged 80-97 years. But the degree of deterioration varies within very wide limits.

Worsens, first of all, our ability to distinguish odors among themselves, with sensitivity to individual compounds is reduced very individual.

There are many theories as to why with age dulled senses of smell and taste.

Environmental pollution, for example, it affects our senses. Diabetes, inflammation of mucous membranes, ear infections and viruses are the type of hepatitis and the flu have played a significant role in reducing sensory sensitivity due to cell death and suppression of regeneration of olfactory receptors.

Many factors affect the taste, smell. Saliva plays a huge role in sense of taste, so medication, dry mouth can significantly change your taste picture. But too much alcohol can cause irritation taste bulbs and at the same time to suppress the sensitivity to the fragrances.

It is also known that the impact head is able to cut down the smell.

A British veteran of the wine trade In Harry (Harry Waugh) in his 80 years he was an active taster, until I got in the car accident, after which, as a result of the blow to the head, lost my sense of smell. Since then, he’s relied more on the taste and tactile sensations in the mouth than the aroma of the wine.

When the legendary American wine critic Robert Parker bumped his head when falling off my bike in 2002, he rushed home to immediately pour yourself a glass of wine and to make sure that his sense of smell was not injured.

The memory of sensations

To distinguish between scents, we also helps our memory.

In 2011, a group of neuroscientists at the University of Claude Bernard (Leon, France) conducted a study among perfumers, who showed that the ability to distinguish thousands of different odors depends on the workout. A team of scientists compared evidence of brain activity in novice and experienced perfumers (up to 35 years in the profession) during the test, to recognize dozens of odors. The performance test in both groups was good, but more experienced was faster and more accurate, and they were actively involved, another part of the brain – the one that is responsible for memory.

Professionals of the world of wine can compensate for the loss of ability to recognize nuances of flavor experience of tasting and accumulated in the memory details.

73-year-old Californian Dan Berger for 40 years, writes about the wines and still organizes and judges wine competitions. He is sure that his taste memory now gives him such opportunities as never before, due to the huge number of wines that he tried in his youth.

This is what age can play a positive role in the ability of our brain to process information about taste and smell.

Berger says that wine critic Robert Balzer (Balzer Robert) has stopped judicial practice at the age of 95 years – and not because of the loss of sensitivity, but because is too slow. A legend of winemaking in Mendocino (CA) John of Parducci, who died last year, asked Berger to one of the events to exclude him from the jury for red wines, when he was 87 because he decided that he could not appreciate red wine to its former accuracy, although with white it did is still good.

Dr. Linda Bartoshuk (Linda Bartoshuk) from the University of Florida says that the loss is not so terrible, although it can be difficult to get used to. She notes that in our brain can form new connections. Joe Diaz, for example, age became vysokoaromatichnyj to prefer white wines such as Viognier and Torrontes.

And just as some athletes and in his 70’s, is able to run a marathon, there are tasters, retain the ability to evaluate key parameters of wine to a ripe old age.

A good sommelier in old age can be even more capable of looking shades than the average man of middle age.

I remember a dinner in NAPA Valley with a well-known collector Barney Rhodes, who was already heavily over 70: he was nodding off at the table, but startled when standing near a glass poured very interesting wine.

Quite a few young winemakers, importers, sommeliers and merchants continue to use your nose and mouth to make key decisions about the wines. This fact should convince the aging of wine lovers that they can continue to rely on its own opinion about a particular wine.

Paul Draper, the famous chief winemaker Ridge Vineyards of California, this year will be 79 and under his leadership, produced some of the finest wines in the country since 1968. He acknowledges that it is able to preserve the purity of perception only for the first 4-6 samples in a row. “In this case, I can still be confident in their assessments,” he says.

Of course, he regularly conducts the evaluation tasting. On top vineyards – Lytton Springs and Monte Bello – a lot of sites, so a tasting in the preparation of blends require a good intuition. And Paul is still in the picture. “When I’m not able to smell and taste, I will leave immediately,” he says, ” but that moment has not yet come!”