Abstract
Wine is an complex beverage, from a sensory as well as a chemical point of view. Wine can elicit a large number of olfactory responses, in addition to the taste responses of sweet, sour, and bitter, and the oral sensations of astringency, irritation, viscosity, and temperature. The physiology underlying the transduction of these sensory signals is equally complex, and is just beginning to be understood. It is now known that a large number of olfactory receptors are expressed in the olfactory epithelium, with axonal convergence at the glomeruli level in the olfactory bulb. There appear to be at least two antagonistic second-messenger systems utilized in olfactory transduction. Gustation, on the other hand, appears to utilize a variety of transduction mechanisms, including direct ion influx, receptor-dependent and receptor-independent ion channels, and regulation of membrane permeability. Oral sensation represents a third frontier of study; current research indicates that we have yet to develop an effective language for describing the breadth of perceived oral sensations. The implications of differential response for olfactory and gustatory sensory research are briefly discussed.
- gustation
- olfaction
- transduction
- wine aroma
- odorants
- tastants
- differential response
- differential preference
- transduction
- Received July 1996.
- Copyright 1997 by the American Society for Enology and Viticulture
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