Wine tasters

The young woman seemed to swill a few thoughts around on her tongue, like a wine-taster making up her mind. Whatever her opinion on the government s methods, she let it go. So could it be those effects that this Garudin is interested in ... 

Empyreumatic odors, evocative of smoke, burnt wood, and cooked meat, are common descriptors used by wine tasters. Until now, a few sulfur compounds with these odors had been identified and assayed in wine at concentrations above their perception thresholds methylthiopropionic acid (Schreier and Drawer 1974), 2-sulfanylethyl acetate (V), and 3-sulfanylptopropyl acetate (X) (Lavigne et al. 1998). Two mercaptans, ethyl 3-sulfanylpropionate (VII) and ethyl 2-sulfanylpropionate (I), have been identified as constituents in the aroma of Vilis labrusca, Concord grapes (Kolor 1983) and both have also been found in Vitis vinifera wine (Tominaga et al. 2003a Blanchard 2000). 

The type of oak wood used is also important, since the volatiles released by different types of oak usually differ hence so do the resulting wines. Tasters tend to prefer a balance between the oak aromas ordinarily produced by the oak lactones and the grape variety s own fruity aromas (Perez-Coello et al. 2000b). 

The making of wine involves chemistry on many levels. For instance, winemakers and wine tasters rely on concentration properties to make and describe their. . . how shall we say. . . delicate, yet somewhat bold and enticing, product. 

Professional wine tasters use a number of interesting terms such as corky, buttery, chewy, fresh, fruity, honeyed, musty, round, complex, acid, thin, youthful, nutty, full, or zestful to describe the attributes of wines, which include aroma, bouquet, nose, astrin-gency, finish, texture, and body. It is this last attribute, body, that connects with the subject of this chapter concentration. Body is the perceived density of the wine in the mouth and depends in good part on the amount of alcohol in the wine. Density, related to concentration, plays a vital part in wine making, too. 

In Utopia, these are a few of the jobs that Pisces would happily hold poet, artist, musician, clairvoyant, palm reader, sailor, filmmaker, actor, wine taster, spiritual healer, hypnotist, yoga teacher — and anything concerning tropical fish, the ocean, or ballet. 

Wine tasters are very sensitive to taste modifications caused by the presence of this gas, even... 

When the Agilent 4440 was used to classify the 30 wines according to one of five vineyards, it accurately classified 100% of the wines (Fig. 6). The Agilent 4440 significantly outperformed amateur wine tasters and won the wine-tasting challenge. 

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