tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9283195.post8944603234382854375..comments2023-10-25T03:00:27.887-07:00Comments on Purple Liquid: a wine and food diary: Can we improve our sense of smell?Catherine Grangerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08037220685013638611noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9283195.post-67959501993252987072008-10-27T07:29:00.000-07:002008-10-27T07:29:00.000-07:00Great comment, thanks António!Great comment, thanks António!Catherine Grangerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08037220685013638611noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9283195.post-66079260424150257472008-10-26T16:54:00.000-07:002008-10-26T16:54:00.000-07:00Wonderful post! I have a degree in enology and hav...Wonderful post! I have a degree in enology and have been a winemaker for the last 20 years, producing red and white wines In Portugal and Port. My profession led me to develop my sense of smell. Once I mastered the skill of imaging smells to communicate with other people and to reference myself, living in a smell-ridden country like Portugal is, I started applying the same routines to several other smelling stuff. Tea, coffee, herbs, fruit, vegetables, clothes, streets, people and so on became the target of my nose. Recently, I cam across a french professional parfumist who lectures on aroma sniffing in wine according to parfum industry methodology. With him, I learned that besides images, aromas can be classified in terms of being warm or cold, upper-nose or lower-nose, balsamic or resinic, sweet or crisp and so on. Through this methodology, I enriched the way I approached smell and started using the concept of olfactive landscapes much in the way that we have visual or auditive ones. Some anthropologists contend that the western world capitalist society downgraded smell as a primitive, unsophisticated and dangerous sense. That's why western cities smell much less than oriental ones and also why fast food tastes much less than home cooked meals. Discovering that smell is a sense in all its right and following our nose around, closing our eyes and discovering the olfactive landscapes of the places where we are, is not only an awakening to a reality which is usually kept hidden from us, it is also a return to our most inner memories of childhood time. Worth the hassle!António Rocha Graçahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15429690626762439712noreply@blogger.com