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In life, we are constantly surrounded by flowers and their scents, both directly and indirectly. However, it is very difficult to distinguish one flower from another, blindly, only on the basis of its scent. It's even more difficult to distinguish the scents of specific flowers within a wine's aromatic bouquet.   "What floral note can you smell in this wine?" Here we can apply the first rule of thumb that is often the case with wine bouquets: generally speaking, we can find white and yellow flowers in white wines and red and purple flowers in red wines. But if we want to go further with our olfactory...

We have talked in the past about the link between scent and literature. We have seen how perfumes are the protagonists of novels, poems, recent stories and those that are more rooted in history. The reference to smell, however, is also present in art. When observing an artwork, our sense of smell is stimulated not directly, but rather through our eyesight that observes the work's composition, colors and subject matter, triggering that series of mnemonic reactions that serve to remind us of the corresponding smell. This past month, the Prado museum in Madrid opened its exhibition entitled "The Essence of Painting. An Olfactory Exhibition," where thanks to...

We often approach the colorful world of beer with curiosity and a good dose of approximation. Beer's product culture is currently at a "pop" level and nonetheless, is not very vast. Most of us think of beer in terms of color, knowing there are blonde beers, red beers and dark beers, reducing it all to this aspect rather than to flavor, ingredients or of its history. In reality, behind this elementary approximation there are dozens of different procedures, countless mixes of ingredients, geographical influences and years of tradition that open up a range of choice opportunities that we will look at briefly in this...

The history of India Pale Ale is curious and interesting. It was first produced in England in 1700, as a Pale Ale beer destined to be sent to the Indian colonies, for consumption by English subjects. Since this beer had to endure a long voyage by ship, it was loaded with a high hop content and a higher alcohol content, because these two factors ensured its good preservation. The result was a very bitter and hoppy Pale Ale with an alcohol content of around 6°-7°. The final balance of this type of beer was also due to the use of very...

Grenache is among the most planted grape varieties in the world and in particular, it extends in various forms throughout Spain and Southern France. Its initial diffusion was indeed in the western Mediterranean and it is now ascertained that it had its origin, with the name Garnacha, in the northern province of Aragon in Spain. It later invaded Rioja and Navarra before colonizing the Pyrenean area, in particular, the French Roussillon, subject to Spain until the seventeenth century. From that point, it spread eastward into the Languedoc and southern Rhone. Thanks to the robustness of the stalk, it is suitable for...