You Can Smell One Trillion Smells…Really!

This 2018 Château Mouton Rothschild Bordeaux Was Just Named the World’s Best Wine of 2021

“…slowly unfurling to reveal a profound nose of warm black plums, blackcurrant cordial, star anise, blueberry pie and mocha with candied violets, oolang tea, camphor and unsmoked cigars plus a touch of crushed rocks…”

——Lisa Perrott-Brown MW, Wine Advocate (April 2019)

OK, so who’s up for a round of crushed rocks? Hmm….

I myself have stood on those very crushed rocks at Mouton and tasted many vintages there. But, never once did I lick the rocks. Somehow it never occurred to me.

On the other hand, it never occurred to me that the human nose can recognize one trillion different distinct smells either. Crushed rocks are among them presumably. But, new research from Rockefeller University recently published in the prestigious journal Science says it’s true. Who am I to argue, even if I don’t seem up to recognizing every single one of those trillion scents?

Of course, recognizing them and naming them are two different problems. You have to practice a bit to tell them apart and practice some more to be able to name them. Chances are you going to run out of words before you run out of smells.

But, there is another bigger issue here. It’s not how many words you need to name all those smells, it’s how you use the words you do have. Words about wine can be weapons, drawing lines of social caste and demeaning or embarrassing those with fewer words and thus creating “experts.”

Talking to a waiter in a restaurant, or the clerk at the liquor store, or God help us, a wine critic can be a traumatic experience. And, if you think that is bad, try having a little talk with a winemaker about what their wine tastes like if you want them to make a change.

I should be clear here that I do not know Ms. Perrotti-Brown whose quote above is about what was just voted the best wine in the world. You can find more opinions where I found this quote at www.tastingbook.com I’m just using her quote as a random example of what happens to “experts” and judges who rate wine.

People outside the business too often take them to be “experts” because they say so and they say so with words they wield like weapons to maintain their expertise. I, too, have been mistaken as an expert from time to time on several continents and in multiple languages. I try to ignore it. It’s not healthy.

The only experts in the wine business are winemakers. When, as an owner, I want a winemaker to change the way their wine tastes, I have to remember that I’m suddenly in the position of a critic and my words can become weapons. I run the danger of reducing wine to a number. It’s really easy for that number to become a rating of the winemaker instead of the wine.

Wines are not numbers. Neither are winemakers.

Just to be clear, wines are not words either. They are an art of the senses. You can’t know wines by talking about them. You have to taste them. Critics don’t actually make wine you see, they just judge it. Critics are not wine experts. Winemakers are wine experts.

“Slowly unfurling to reveal a profound nose…” and all that other stuff you hear James Bond say in the movies is amusing, but really now, how exactly does one determine a nose is profound?

And if you want a blackberry cordial you can buy one at the store. In the book, I quote another one of my favorites. A certain red wine was said to be ‘floating on a sea of tannins.” Not really. You can fit a ship in a bottle but not a sea. Try telling a winemaker to make a wine floating on a sea of tannins and see how that goes for you.

Full disclosure: I’ve written back labels with descriptions like this, too so I’m not without blame myself.

In this specific case, Mouton has been one of the best wines in the world since at least 1855. The going price at the moment (January, 2020) before it has actually shipped from the Chateau is around $685/ bottle (750ml) on pre-order (futures) with delivery whenever Mouton decides to deliver it. It’s likely to be $1200/bottle (750ml) a month or two after it’s delivered.

This is going to be a classic wine from a classic year that will be famous for generations to come, but it’s not going to be because it tastes like crushed rocks and blueberry pie.

And, from a winery owner’s point of view, I can tell you no winery owner ever told a winemaker to make a wine that tastes like crushed rocks and blueberry pie and lived to tell about it.

Winemakers already think owners are crazy and need to be restrained for their own good.

And let’s say, just for the fun of it, that Mouton 2018 does taste like star anise, blackberry cordial, and rocks. It only tastes like that if you have trained for years to recognize those tastes. To hear an interview from Wine Spectator and Phillippe Dhaluin, Technical Director at Chateau Mouton Rothschild, click here.

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People can detect at least one trillion distinct scents. Scientists thought that the human nose could only detect about 10,000 different smells, but that information was based on a study from 1927 and very outdated. This year, researchers from Rockefeller University tested people’s sense of smell by using different mixtures of odor molecules. The results, published in the journal Science, showed that the nose can smell at least one trillion distinct scents. —-www.everydayhealth.com

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I’ve practiced for over 50 years and I am still a little short of recognizing a trillion smells. Even if I could I’m pretty sure I’d have to use the same word twice every once in a while.

Words matter to a winemaker because they have to communicate very specific actions to other people in the cellar while they are making wine. It’s the same way a plumber has all kinds of words for pipes and fittings and wrenches that I don’t have.

Or, a loftier comparison might be it’s the same as composers having all kinds of words for music that I don’t have... or, rocket scientists. Trade words are there because they are useful in the doing of a thing, not randomly generated like refrigerator poetry.