Grapes don’t actually smell like that. Neither do strawberries. Know what I’m talking about?
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Fruit scents often come from a group of simple chemicals called esters which can either be extracted from the fruit or – more often – manufactured by reacting an alcohol (methanol, ethanol, propanol etc) with an organic acid (methanoic, ethanoic, salicylic etc) – these are all common chemicals either found in nature or produced by the tonne in oil refineries. The process of making pure esters is really simple which is why they can be used in foods, fragrances, you name it.
A few examples, pentyl ethanoate is a simple pear scent, methyl salicylate is wintergreen, ethyl butyrate is strawberry (ish), octal ethanoate is an orange scent – and so on. Just using one ester gives a basic scent, but the real fruit often contains more than one ester which is why a lot of cheap artificial scents using a single ester don’t quite smell right.
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