Lessons in Wine Chemistry
from Wine Blast with Susie and Peter Hosted by Susie and Peter, Masters of Wine
Why does wine taste the way it does? Why does Cabernet smell like blackcurrant? Or Syrah like pepper? Or Beaujolais like...bananas?! In this intriguing show our genial, white-coated guide is wine chemist and sensory scientist Gus Zhu, the first Chinese Master of Wine. As he says, 'Behind every glass of wine, there is science.' In terms of chemistry, wine is one of the most complex solutions on the planet. Not only that, but human senses are notoriously complicated and variable. It all makes answering the question of why wine tastes the way it does...quite tricky. But do not fear - there's plenty to learn and enjoy in this episode, and we touch on things as varied as flowers, cigarettes, farting, petrol, AI, soap, saliva, whisky, urine and strawberry-flavoured yoghurt. Thanks for tuning in. We love to hear from you so please do get in touch! Send us a voice message via Speakpipe. Or you can find contact info, together with all details from this episode including full wine recommendations, on our website: Show notes for Wine Blast S6 E9 - Lessons in Wine Chemistry Instagram: @susieandpeter
Embed this episode
What this episode covers
Why does wine taste the way it does? Why does Cabernet smell like blackcurrant? Or Syrah like pepper? Or Beaujolais like...bananas?! In this intriguing show our genial, white-coated guide is wine chemist and sensory scientist Gus Zhu, the first Chinese Master of Wine. As he says, 'Behind every glass of wine, there is science.' In terms of chemistry, wine is one of the most complex solutions on the planet. Not only that, but human senses are notoriously complicated and variable. It all makes...
Chapters
- 0:39 Hello and welcome
- 0:46 What this episode's all about
- 1:32 Headline quote
- 1:50 Introducing Gus Zhu MW
- 2:49 Listener question from Elin Pranter about wine chemistry
- 3:48 Getting started on wine chemistry
- 5:55 How would Gus describe a glass of red wine analytically in chemical terms?
- 8:37 A fun wine chemistry experiment
- 11:23 Taste, toxicity and tannins
- 12:47 Hypertasters vs hypotasters
- 13:30 How saliva can influence your taste
- 15:22 How many aroma compounds are there in a glass of wine?
- 18:51 Beyond rotundone, what other terpenoids do we find in wine?
- 21:52 Terpenoids constitute, 'a powerful language in the form of aromas'
- 23:19 MID-EPISODE RECAP
- 23:55 Why does Cabernet smell like blackcurrant?
- 26:04 Why thiols, or sulfur-containing compounds, are fascinating
- 28:17 How to best farm grapes to create the best aroma precursor compounds?
- 32:39 Esters: aromas produced by yeasts
- 36:27 How and why is subjectivity so important in all of this?
- 41:13 Testing TCA taint in whisky to illustrate that the whole is more important than the sum of the parts
- 45:10 Humans still have an important role to play
- 45:58 DISCOUNT CODE for Gus's book Behind the Glass
- 47:21 FINAL SUMMARY
- 48:10 Outro
No transcript yet.