I always heard that open your mouth and smelling Wine helps you get the scent better so it won’t be overwhelmed by the alcohol scent and I have no clue why this works, can anyone explain?
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I think I actually have the answer to this one.
It basically comes down to breaking down olfaction and grasping the difference between *aroma* and *flavour*.
I’ll directly use an example:
Imagine drinking a sip of flavoured sirup by holding your nose. You will not technically smell it because your nose is blocked and you’ve ingurgitated it through your mouth, but you’ll definitely get some level of information on its taste as it touches your palate and goes down your throat. That would be the syrup’s *flavour*.
In France’s wine tasting circles, the science behind having to keep your mouth slightly open while smelling wine is to enable a secondary olfactive mechanism called “retro olfaction”.
**Direct olfaction** is smelling things through your nose. The “information” will be carried to your olfactive epithelium (a little spot between the end of your nasal tracts and palate) and will enable you to analyse the *aroma*. Going back to our syrup example, it’s when you’ll unblock your nose and directly smell the syrup with your nose that you’ll be able to tell if it’s raspberry or mint flavoured.
**Retro olfaction** is smelling things through your mouth. Information will still be carried to your olfactive epithelium but through a different pathway, going to the back of your mouth and up your palate. Retro olfaction has an important part to play in detecting *flavour*. Going back to our syrup example, it’s thanks to *retro olfaction* that you will sense sweetness, acidity or bitterness for example.
Wine tasting is all about detecting mixes between flavours and aromas. That’s why you need to both smell the wine directly and retroactively.
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