Our Sense of Smell and Taste

Eva-Marie Lind is an expert in the field of aromatic raw materials and sensory perception.  A recognized leader in the art of perfumery, she has designed the aromas, scents and flavors of many perfumes, health and beauty products.  Frey Vineyards invited Eva-Marie to come to the winery as a sensory sommelier and merge the foundations of the art of perfumery with the art of winemaking.By Eva-Marie Lind

For a moment, let us explore our sense of smell and taste.  We each have our own genetic encoded odor print.  None of us, outside of identical twins, experience the sense of smell and taste in the same manner.  Scents and flavors elicit psychosomatic (mind and spirit) as well as physiologic (body) responses, which, beyond our awareness, imprint themselves onto our memory.  In addition, our perceptions are influenced biologically, by age, sex chemistry and environment.

We each respond to scent through a variety of circumstances unique to our individuality.  This theory, called ‘learned-odor response,” is why the same aroma (scent and flavor) can affect each of us quite differently.  An aroma that triggers good memories for one person, may revisit painful memories for another.  Our individual histories, locked within the recesses of our mind, govern our responses and our feelings.  

Of all our senses, smell may be our most acute; enabled and facilitated by the mysterious process of our olfactory nerves that, unlike most others in our physical make-up, have the capacity to renew themselves.  Each olfactory neuron survives a mere sixty days and is then replaced by a new cell.  When these cells renew themselves, the axons of neurons that express the same receptor always go to the exact same place.  This is why our memories are able to survive all this turnover of neurons.

We have the capacity to smell and identify over one trillion odors in one square inch of the brain.  Smelling is rapid in response, taking merely 0.5 seconds to register as compared to 0.9 seconds to react to pain.

Our nose and its epithelium are an ‘organ’- one that digests, assimilates and transfers odor molecules to the brain to be further processed.  Registering odors is generally independent of our left hemisphere brain, which is the care-center of our mind and is responsible for our impartiality, examination and intellect. Our left brain is also responsible for governing language and speech which suggest why it is so difficult for many to adequately describe aromas with language. Odor recognition is predominately a right hemisphere brain activity.  This is the area responsible for our passion, emotion, creativity, and instinctive behavior.

The senses of smell and taste are tightly joined, however tasting requires tens of thousands more molecules to register, than does smell.

Taste buds are as fascinating as our olfactory neurons. In the 17th century, Marcello Maphigi identified the papillae of our tongue, each composed of taste buds, as “organs of taste.” Taste buds also reside on the soft palate, tonsils and the upper third of the esophagus. We have nearly 10,000 buds. Sixty -five taste buds fit into the space of one typewritten period. Each papillae contain about two hundred and fifty buds. Just like our olfactory neurons, taste buds are in a constant state of flux and regeneration, shedding and renewing every ten days.

Taste buds distinguish the four qualities of sweet, salty, bitter and sour.  In Japan they add a fifth quality of ‘karai, for spicy, hot and richness.  In India, within the Ayurvedic tradition, there are six “rasas,’ removing spicy and adding astringent and pungent.  All other tastes and flavors are detected by the olfactory receptors that reside within our nasal passages.  We smell odors and flavors through our nose, as well as the passageway in the back of the mouth.

Wine tasting can be enhanced with the unique vocabulary and experiential inferences of scent. My goal is to alter your perception, encourage your imagination and facilitate a (r)evolution between the world of perfume and wine.

 

 

Sangiovese, the Classic Italian Grape

By Eva-Marie Lind 

I arrived at Frey Vineyards after three years in Italy researching the heritage perfume of the trees of Fiori d’Arancia amara.  This bitter orange produces the valued blossoms known to the perfume industry as Neroli.

So, it was with great enthusiasm that I discovered that the fields that welcomed me into the winery were planted with the classic Italian grape, Sangiovese.

Each morning with dense coffee in hand and then at dusk with my thermos of essence spiked sparkling water, I observed her (Sangiovese.) Rudolf Steiner, the father of Biodynamic agriculture, advised visual and sensory observation of the farm and the crops.  Sunrise to sunset, I noticed the pollinators of the in between vine flora, the tilling and smell of the soil, as well as the fauna.  Bushy skunk, momma fox, deer and most recently, baby bear, all made appearances.

I had missed budburst and full flower, arriving as the flower caps were ever so slightly fading.  I watched as the caps fell away becoming joyful sets of berries.  I noticed the unique visual communities each cluster formed.

Sangiovese 2016- A visual delight in the glass of dense garnet with a thin pinkish- purple roof. Opening aroma of sweet earth holding hints of air cooled by summer evening breezes.  Violet leaf and blueberry with a touch of pink lotus absolute and a tinge of herb and pimento berry. The mouth feel is both light and full offering lively ripe raspberry, cherry, tea rose, pink pepper and young wild forest notes.

Opens robustly with black silky elegance, black currant and mulberry, a hint of tobacco and a feathering of licorice, clove and sweet saddle-leather.

 

 

Frey Wines Are Keto-Friendly

We love when customers contact us with questions about our wines.  If we don’t know the answers off-hand, it prompts us to geek-out on research, which is truly one of our favorite pastimes!

We’ve received several questions from customers lately asking if our wines are Keto-friendly.  While we’re familiar with the Keto diet as a low-carbohydrate, high-fat diet that lowers blood sugar and insulin levels, and boosts the body’s metabolism, we wanted to learn more about why Frey wines qualify as Keto-friendly.

Practitioners of the Keto diet aim to keep the body in the blissful metabolic state called ketosis, where the body is actually burning up stored fat.  Due to their carb content, many alcoholic beverages can throw you out of ketosis.  Wine and light varieties of beer are relatively low in carbs, usually 3-4 grams per serving, but when you’re trying to clock under 30 carbs per day on the Keto diet, even a glass of wine could launch you out of ketosis.

So where do the carbs in wine come from in the first place?  Carbs in alcohol come from residual sugar, or sugars left over after the fermentation process.  Before grapes ferment into wine, they are sugary.  During fermentation in the cellar, tiny yeasts feast on grape sugar and produce alcohol and carbon dioxide.  As the alcohol level rises it kills off the yeast, and any remaining sugar becomes known as residual sugar.  In some cases, a winemaker might desire more residual sugar in order to manipulate a wine’s acidity and will stop the process to prevent the yeast from consuming all the sugar.  In other cases, a winemaker might add sugar to ultimately increase the alcohol level in a process called chaptalization, although this technique is prohibited in California.

Because of the presence of sugar, whether residual or added, even wines that are classified as “dry” can still bring on the carbs.  Varieties with higher alcohol levels, typically Petite Sirah, Syrah, and Zinfandel, will naturally harbor more carbs.  Although wine labels don’t list nutritional information like calories and carbs, if you know the residual sugar in grams per liter, you can do the sum on your own.  To calculate carbs per 5 oz. serving of wine, multiply the residual sugar by 0.15.  Dry wines are classified as wines with 30 grams/liter or less of residual sugar, so one glass of dry wine can contain between 0-4 carbs.

At Frey Vineyards, we allow the yeast to go through the full maturation process in the cellar and we produce our wines with very little manipulation.  ALL of our wines test for less than 1% residual sugar, which means they all contain less than 0.15 carbohydrates per 5 oz. glass.  So Keto friends can rest assured that our wines are low-carb and can be enjoyed while enjoying your fitness plan!