Читать книгу Wine Faults and Flaws - Keith Grainger - Страница 43

Some people have tongues with a high density of fungiform papillae and other papillae, which contain the taste buds, making them particularly sensitive to bitter sensations. This is probably on account of genetics. The psychologist Linda Bartoshuk, formerly of Yale University and latterly Presidential Endowed Professor at the University of Florida, defines these people, who perhaps comprise 25% of the population, as ‘supertasters’. The work done by Ann Noble, the inventor of the ‘wine aroma wheel’, at UC Davis also established that there are no ‘supertasters in general’. An individual who is a supertaster with one bitter compound, e.g. naringin(e), might be a non‐taster with another, e.g. 6‐N‐propylthiouracil (PROP), or caffeine. It should be noted that supertasters do not necessarily make the best wine tasters, for the intense sensations they perceive from bitterness and astringency, impacts on other sensations and perceptions of the balance of a wine.