To add a question for Jerome, have you noticed this effect associated with the temperature of the wine?
I find ‘alcohol’ or ‘heat’ to be much more noticeable at higher temperatures.
Also, have you noted it with only one ‘color’ of wine? (I find it a more noticeable thing with red wines.)
Call it a scent or odor, I don’t care, I know what you mean. Alcohol does create a sensory sensation.
I’ve never smelled alcohol. If you get the chance, try to smell 100% Ethanol - it’s odourless - except, as Maureen notes, that it brings a burning sensation in your nose. Plenty of wines replicate that, so I assume the alcohol is a bit high - but I’ve never actually smelled the (ethyl) alcohol…
Actually 100% ethanol is toxic because of additives (usually benzene) to drive off water. Water and ethanol form an azeotrope and the highest concentration one can obtain with distillation is about 95%. Anything above this has to be processed with other dehydrating agents.
If there are additives then it wouldn’t be 100% would it?
Since alc does not actually have any smell it’s actually odorless…I do get you can tell how it makes nuances seem hot though…
Salute !!!
Interestingly, alcohol does do things you can sense/smell.
Take a whiff of a good vodka or “Everclear” and see if you can tell it is alcoholic vs. taking a whiff of distilled water. There will be a difference.
It can be as simple as alcohol vapor affecting the solubility of other molecules in contact with the olfactory mucosa and thus affecting your perception in a ‘second hand’ way by altering how things that are already present are suddenly perceived.
You can even try smelling other things, or tasting other things, and then sniffing a ‘pure’ alcoholic liquid and noting the differences! ![[cheers.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/0/0ff9bfcdb0964982cd3240b6159868fbdf215b1a.gif "cheers"){kind=small}
Or, try sniffing Scotch vs. wine and you will get an immediate idea of how alcohol content can be associated with different scent-sations!
Salute, for sure!
OK but it’s not the ethanol it’s tasteless …other things in the wort brew,must,wine,etc…give you taste …but to say alc has a taste is wrong…it has an effect and that affects in taste of whatever other than alc surely…
Salute !!!
Plenty of studies indicate ethanol has an odour. One picked at random from google.
again it has no taste … its the water its interacting that gives it taste or its interaction with something else, but not the alc by itself… now can you smell the presence of alc, no only by what fermentation did to the water , etc… then you have an odor, smell… alc at its purest still have 4%^ water in it and water has many odors and chemicals that it stokes to smell or taste, but pure alc has no odor itself … wine with high alc , sure the high alc stoked something in the must or wine … now the taste of alc is sweet, especially as wines approach 15+ % and they are not wines at all but port like or spirits according to the experts … true wine alc is 7 to 14% after that , sorry folks your drinking spirits, not true wine …
Salute !!!