HOW WE PERCEIVE THE TASTE OF WINE IS NOT DUE TO TASTE AND SMELL BUT THE TRIGEMINAL NERVE. A STUDY BY SCIENTISTS AT THE RUHR UNIVERSITY IN BOCHUM (GERMANY), DISCOVERED THIS PROVOCATIVE THEORY, PUBLISHED BY "CHEMICAL SENSES"

Taste and smell are not what we use to determine our appreciation of a wine. A study at the Ruhr-Universität Bochum (Germany), led by Hanns Hatt and published in the journal "Chemical Senses", supports the provocative theory the trigeminal nerve has all the merit.

The Italian news agency AGI reported that it seems the trigeminal nerve gives “the perception of the taste of the wine, and the ability to identify a wine that has been aged in oak barrels. The trigeminal nerve”, reported the agency “is, among other things, the nerve responsible for the perception of pain and temperature. Scientists have discovered that the senses of taste and smell are not therefore, involved in the appreciation of wine”.

In detail, researchers have shown that patients with damaged nerves related to taste, and unable to taste the five basic tastes (sweet, human, salty, bitter and sour), could still taste the aroma of barrique, typical of wines aged in oak barrels, on their tongues. However, when the trigeminal nerve was turned "off" on subjects, the taste of barrels disappeared. The team used cultured cells to study the effect of the substance linked to the flavor of barrels on cells originating from the trigeminal nerve of mice.