WTN: Rocks and a Port (Musings on the psychology of scent)

I am not a fan on Fantasy literature, but I do like some works of the genre. Recently Robin Hobb's books have been ones I've read, but I have read Tolkien's magnum opus with interest also quite a while back. I finally borrowed the DVDs of the recent filmatisation of LOTR and started looking through them. Now comes the psycho stuff: while reading the book, one of the wines I drunk was a Cloudy Bay SB (vintage forgotten by now) and the other was a VP (both producer and vintage forgotten by now). But watching some scenes of the DVD brought back what I smelled extremely clearly - this is a deja-sniffed experience It was a rather unnerving experience, but it did cause me to question one thing. Is the sense of smell a sensation that is particularily memorable? Is the memory of scents really so strong that a scene in a movie can remind me of a wine I drunk 5-6 years ago? If so, is that the reason we can all probably identify hundreds (maybe thousands?) items on scent? Are our other senses also as strong? Or does this hobby just make us pay attention to the scent so much more than other senses?

Well, though I rarely care for Sauv Bl, I was inspired by the film and by psycho musings to open up a SB and a Port (and a couple more wines, too):

Hubert Veneau Pouilly-Fumé 2005 13% abv, 14,47€

Almost colourless. The nose on the first day open was rather weird: mead-like/honeyed and funky but with true mineral Sauv Bl notes underneath. The second day open was much better. It does have slight over-ripe notes (rotting strawberries) but these are so slight that I have no trouble blocking them. The aromatics are very true to Pouilly-Fumé otherwise - almost caricature-like in fact with its smoky tones. The palate was very nice on both days: nice fruit (but gladly no over-ripe notes here) and minerality, but it is pleasantly tart also and very food friendly. The aftertaste was absolutely lovely: intense, acidic and mineral and builds up in intensity and is very, very long. I love some aspects of the wine, but I am not at all sure I like the whole. But it was a very interesting drink over the two days.

Josef Biffar Deidesheimer Grainhübel Riesling Spätlese Trocken 1996 12,5%, ?€

A delight! A mineral nose, very true to the grape, with some maturity showing yet a youthful vibrancy. The palate is also going through an easy puberty: vibrant and zippy yet showing some mature notes as well. The fruit is sufficent to not make me wish for RS: though I rarely seem to like Trockens, this, however, is very nice. A day of air didn't bring out any deterioration, but did soften the acidity a bit. I loved it on both days.

Weingut Willi Bründlmayer Grüner Veltliner Qualitätswein Ried Loiser Berg 2006 13,5%, c.17€

Watery/colourless. The nose is lovely: limpid and ripe and expressive fruit, immense minerality and it is true to the grape with grapefruit and white pepper aromas. The palate is weighty in fruit, but well structured and both refreshing and moreish. The aftertaste shows strong minerality and is very long. Very nice! It does show a touch of over-ripeness, though. The second day open shows it going strong - so strong in fact that none is left for the third day though I would have liked to monitor it longer!

Gould Campbell Vintage Port 1985 20% 70€ ( )

Upon decanting, the nose was very mute. An hour later it was very cedary and spicy. After 4 hours, it was open and smelled lovely but was a touch alcoholic.

After 5 hours decanting we started drinking. The colour seems a bit advanced: see-through with a pink rim. Odd. But no worries, as the scent is just lovely. This is a cedary and spicy port but with lovely fruit also: it seems gentlemanly and "old style" at the same time as it seems exotic and "oriental" (in the pre-Edward Saidian use of the term). The palate has opulent fruit ('85 was a hot year?) and still quite a bit of soft tannins. I don't mind tannins at all if they are as ripe as these ones, so I have no qualms about drinking this now. The acidity is on the low side, but there is the slightest touch of volatility - but nothing that could be considered a flaw (I understand some reports on '85s have found annoying levels of VA in '85s). This may not be a hugely complex Port and the aftertaste is perhaps a touch short, but it is a delight to drink it. If the price here weren't so absurd I would buy several bottles of this.

-Otto-

Is the sense of smell a sensation that is particularily memorable? Is the memory of scents really so strong that a scene in a movie can remind me of a wine I drunk 5-6 years ago? If so, is that the reason we can all probably identify hundreds (maybe thousands?) items on scent? Are our other senses also as strong? Or does this hobby just make us pay attention to the scent so much more than other senses?

I'm no expert on the workings of the brain, but I have heard in the past that the sense of smell is far more intimately connected with memory than our other senses--signals from our olfactory receptors go both to the part of the brain where memories and emotions are stored as well as the part where we do our conscious thinking.

If I recall correctly, the evolutionary explanation for why memory is so intimately tied to our sense of smell is because we depend on the sense of smell to detect poison (and general suitability) in things we intend to consume. So developing a good olfactory memory would increase one's chances of survival and passing on the genes. Certainly I have noted memories flood in when I smell something that I experienced in my childhood (but don't run into often nowadays)--all sorts of things one would think are not related come back quite overwhelmingly into the conscious mind. It's quite a trip!

As always, Otto, you raise significant points. One way of looking at your issue is to distinguish between voluntary and involuntary memories. For me, visual images bring back involuntary memories, but smells are much more effective -- if I mow my lawn tomorrow morning as I plan to do -- I know I'll remember a hillside in Wisconsin with absolute clarity -- 1200 miles and 60 years ago.

Proust wrote a bit about this effect in a famous passage -- he mentions sight and taste and aroma -- when I read the English translation, at least, I believe the aroma is most important -- taste, after all, is highly dependent on smell.

Regards, Bob

Rememberance of Things Past, Marcel Proust:

Undoubtedly what is thus palpitating in the depths of my being must be the image, the visual memory which, being linked to that taste, is trying to follow it into my conscious mind. But its struggles are too far off, too confused and chaotic; scarcely can I perceive the neutral glow into which the elusive whirling medley of stirred-up colours is fused, and I cannot distinguish its form, cannot invite it, as the one possible interpreter, to translate for me the evidence of its contemporary, its inseparable paramour, the taste, cannot ask it to inform me what special circumstance is in question, from what period in my past life.

Will it ultimately reach the clear surface of my consciousness, this memory, this old, dead moment which the magnetism of an identical moment has traveled so far to importune, to disturb, to raise up out of the very depths of my being? I cannot tell. Now I feel nothing; it has stopped, has perhaps sunk back into its darkness, from which who can say whether it will ever rise again? Ten times over I must essay the task, must lean down over the abyss. And each time the cowardice that deters us from every difficult task, every important enterprise, has urged me to leave the thing alone, to drink my tea and to think merely of the worries of to-day and my hopes for to-morrow, which can be brooded over painlessly.

And suddenly the memory revealed itself. The taste was that of the little piece of madeleine which on Sunday mornings at Combray (because on those mornings I did not go out before mass), when I went to say good morning to her in her bedroom , my aunt Léonie used to give me, dipping it first in her own cup of tea or tisane. The sight of the little madeleine had recalled nothing to my mind before I tasted it; perhaps because I had so often seen such things in the meantime, without tasting them, on the trays in pastry-cooks' windows, that their image had dissociated itself from those Combray days to take its place among others more recent; perhaps because of those memories, so long abandoned and put out of mind, nothing now survived, everything was scattered; the shapes of things, including that of the little scallop-shell of pastry, so richly sensual under its severe, religious folds, were either obliterated or had been so long dormant as to have lost the power of expansion which would have allowed them to resume their place in my consciousness. But when from a long-distant past nothing subsists, after the people are dead, after the things are broken and scattered, taste and smell alone, more fragile but more enduring, more unsubstantial, more persistent, more faithful, remain poised a long time, like souls, remembering, waiting, hoping, amid the ruins of all the rest; and bear unflinchingly, in the tiny and almost impalpable drop of their essence, the vast structure of recollection.

And as soon as I had recognized the taste of the piece of madeleine soaked in her decoction of lime-blossom which my aunt used to give me (although I did not yet know and must long postpone the discovery of why this memory made me so happy) immediately the old grey house upon the street, where her room was, rose up like a stage set to attach itself to the little pavilion opening on to the garden which had been built out behind it for my parents (the isolated segment which until that moment had been all that I could see); and with the house the town, from morning to night and in all weathers, the Square where I used to be sent before lunch, the streets along which I used to run errands, the country roads we took when it was fine. And as in the game wherein the Japanese amuse themselves by filling a porcelain bowl with water and steeping in it little pieces of paper which until then are without character or form, but, the moment they become wet, stretch and twist and take on colour and distinctive shape, become flowers or houses or people, solid and recognizable, so in that moment all the flowers in our garden and in M. Swann's park, and the water-lilies on the Vivonne and the good folk of the village and their little dwellings and the parish church and the whole of Combray and its surroundings, taking shape and solidity, sprang into being, town and gardens alike, from my cup of tea.

Thanks Keith. But I thought that the scent/memory thing was supposed to work the other way around, i.e. the scent triggers the memory, not the memory triggers the memory of the scent as happened with me and LOTR?

Bob, Proust rocks! Must read it again - it's been several years since I've read it. Is that Moncrieff's translation?

-O-

Otto tasted....Gould Campbell Vintage Port 1985 20% 70€ ( )

Upon decanting, the nose was very mute. An hour later it was very cedary and spicy. After 4 hours, it was open and smelled lovely but was a touch alcoholic.

Well today I tasted the `83 Otto. My local winestore downtown had a leaky bottle of the `83 G-C. It was delicious, showing very little advanced age on the rim. Lovely ripe fruit, soft tannins, just exceptional.

Rememberance of Things Past, Marcel Proust:

Thanks, Otto, for raising this fascinating topic and thanks, Bob, for posting this famous passage from Proust. So used have I become to speed reading and skimming that I had to force myself to relax and concentrate to appreciate its relevance and beauty; a lesson in itself. This is also a masterpiece of translation.

[David M. Bueker]

Otto,

In what way did you note overripeness on the Brundlmayer? Your tasting ntoe does not specify, and the alcohol level is not so outrageous for Gruner Veltliner.

But I thought that the scent/memory thing was supposed to work the other way around, i.e. the scent triggers the memory, not the memory triggers the memory of the scent as happened with me and LOTR?

I can't recall a time where a memory triggered a scent for me. The other way around yes.

For instance when I was young my dad baked a lot of bread. My dad passed away five years ago. Often when I am baking bread, the smell of the bread as it comes out of the oven will bring back memories of my dad. However, there are other times that I am remembering my dad and never do I smell fresh baked bread.

Rememberance of Things Past, Marcel Proust:

This is also a masterpiece of translation.

Tim,
On that topic, why is the title translated as it is? Should not À La Recherche du Temps Perdu properly be rendered rather as In Search of Lost Time or In Search of Lost Moments?

Mark Lipton