"Smokey, burned match, paper and wood" are common odor “notes” detected in wine. They are caused by several phenols, alkyl and phenyl thiols and combinations of these compounds with non-smoky smelling odorants. Some of these odorants are formed from precursors in the grapes and others are environmental contaminants from fire. "Smoky" is a multivariate percept composed of several sensations each caused by a few key odorants. In this paper, we describe the use of sniff olfactometry (SO) to determine subject response to 70 ms stimulant pulses of wine headspace containing “smoky” odorants. Subjects choose one of two responses to associate with these these fleeting sensations. Their responses were presented randomly and double blind and showed minimal adaptation . Binomial modeling of the responses yielded threshold likelihood limits in "odorant vs blank" protocols and measures of odor dominance in "odorant(A) vs odorant(B)" protocols. Using models made from different varieties of red wine, i.e. Cabernet Sauvignon, Charbono, and Pinot Noir, we determined the thresholds for 4 subjects who differ by 2 confidence intervals for at least one odorant pair. Finally, we will discuss the difference in odor dominance measured for these subjects for simple mixtures of "Smok" odorants.

Rapid determination of “smoky” odorant thresholds in red wine using sniff olfactometry (SO)

255th National Meeting (2018)

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