Ten Aromas

Top ten aromas you don’t want to smell in your wine this fall.

Compound	What it Smells Like
Acetaldehyde	Stale straw; roasted nuts
Amyl-acetate	Fake candy banana flavoring
Brettanomyces	Barnyards, fecal matter, gamey horses
Cork taint	Damp dog in damp basement sitting on damp cardboard
Butyric acid	Rancid butter
Ethyl acetate	Weak vinegar, paint thinner, nail polish remover
Hydrogen sulfide	Rotten eggs, garlic that has gone bad
Mercaptans	Burnt garlic or onion
Oxidation	Cooked bruised fruit and walnuts
Sulfur dioxide	Burnt matches

How fast are your tastebuds?

A. 13-15 milliseconds

B. 1-2 centiseconds

C. 1.5-4.0 millseconds

D. 30-35 milliseconds

The human body can taste faster than it can see, touch, or hear. According to Dr. Hildegarde Heymann, Professor and Enologist in the Department of Viticulture and Enology at the University of California at Davis, taste perception is swift because the tongue and mouth (assisted by the nose) are the body’s primary defenses against poison. Here’s how fast perception occurs after initial stimulation, as measured in thousandths of a second, for our four main senses:

Taste: 1.5 – 4.0 milliseconds
Touch: 2.4 – 8.9 milliseconds
Vision: 13 – 45 milliseconds
Hearing: 13 – 22 milliseconds

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Ten Aromas

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