YCC 3 |
| Wine is one of the most profitable value-added products farmers can make. It gives many grape growers the income needed to be sustainable and among the most ecologically responsible land stewards in agriculture. However, the entire sustainability of the wine industry derives from the consumers perception of wine flavor and flavor is the chemosensory perception of just a few chemicals found in wine. During the last 40 years most of the flavor chemicals in food that stimulate perception in consumers have been identified and the total number is less than a 1000 not the 100's of thousands that have been quoted so often in the literature. In most wines less than 100 chemicals combine to produce the effects that provide the unique experiences produced by the many types of wine produced in the world. Clearly, understanding this chemistry is essential to the reasoned production of wine but recent knowledge about the neurobiology of taste and smell, the psychology of perception and the functional genetics of the chemosensory apparatus is changing how we think about wine flavor and it's relationship to consumers. As an introduction to the symposium on wine flavor this talk will outline our present knowledge of wine flavor chemistry and its impact on perception. |
|
Chemistry of Wine
1:30 PM-4:30 PM, Sunday, 10 September 2006 San Francisco Marriott -- Pacific Room I, Oral
Younger Chemists Committee |