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  Recognising scents blindly is a difficult task for most people. This is because we are not used to using our sense of smell, and when we smell a portion of food or an apple, we often do so with our eyes (i.e. we recognise it by its appearance and not by its smell). This is why closing our eyes makes it difficult for most people to identify even the smell of an apple. The poor use of the sense of smell also means that our spoken language does not have specific adjectives to describe a smell. Therefore, to describe...

Trappist beers are Belgian abbey beers that are produced inside a monastery under the supervision of monks. They are a group of very varied beers that reflect the traditions handed down by the monks over the centuries. Dubbel is a term used to indicate Trappist beers of medium-high alcohol content (about 7°). In the past, in fact, Dubbel and Tripel indicated the increasing strength of beer (in comparison with the strength of the beer the monks, themselves, consumed in general). They can fall into the broader category of Brown Ale beers. Dubbels are malty beers with a medium-low degree of...

Spain is the country with the largest cultivated areas of ​​wine grapes in Europe. It is best known for its robust red wines, but in recent years it has been producing a large number of different wines and high quality grape varieties. The territory is very vast and characterized by different climates depending on the area: To the north west (Galicia, Basque Country) the climate is cool; in the north east/central regions (Rioja, Navarra, Aragon, Castile and Leon, Catalonia) the climate is temperate; in the central south (Castile - La Mancha, Andalucia, Valencia, Extremadura) the climate is warm. Among the best known...

Despite the name, coconuts are not nuts, but fruits. Their aroma, however, is unique and dissimilar to both fruit and nuts.  The coconut is the seed of a tropical plant native to the Indian Ocean and has been spread across the globe over the centuries by explorers. In fact, it seems that the coconut was named by 16th century Portuguese explorers who brought the fruit back from travels in the Indies and then on to the Americas. The word seems to derive from “coco”, meaning grinning monkey face, because of the coconut's shape and the three black spots on its surface. Today, most people know the coconut...

The way a wine's bouquet changes as it ages is one of most fascinating aspects of enology. Over time, a wine may develop a surprising and pleasant bouquet of aromas, or it may lose its “personality” and take a turn for the worse. There are many chemical reactions that occur in a wine during its evolution over the years, but the oxidation process is the only one that greatly affects the wine's aromas.  Oxidation of the wine's aromatic chemical compounds happens over time to all wines: red, white, sparkling, sweet, fortified, and others. Oxidation is due to the leak of air through the pores of...