To their amazement, Frost and his team discovered that the consumption of low-alcohol wines produced significantly greater activation than the consumption of high-alcohol wines in brain regions that are sensitive to taste intensity and flavor, including the right insula as well as the cerebellum. They also found that the participants subjectively rated the low- and high-alcohol content wines as virtually identical in pleasantness, with a rating of about 10.5. These findings not only disprove the long-held assumption that high alcoholic content means a more pleasant wine, but, furthermore, suggest that wines with lower alcohol content drive the brain to spend more time deciphering the rich array of flavors inherent in wine.
The cerebellum receives inputs from all the sensory modalities involved in consuming wine and coordinates the acquisition of that sensory information to various regions in the right hemisphere (rolandic operculum and post-central gyrus) and the left hemisphere (post-central gyrus, thalamus, and supplementary motor area). This strong activation of the cerebellum during the consumption of low-alcohol content wine supports the intuition held by some sommeliers, which suggests that lower-alcohol content wines have a better chance to induce greater sensitivity to the overall flavor expressed by the wine.
But what is more fascinating is that these neurological differences were found within the brains of wine consumers that were not professionals. If both sommeliers and novice wine consumers experience similar subjective experiences of heightened flavor and taste upon the consumption of low-alcohol wines, are there neurological differences in these two types of tasters?
It is clear that sommeliers spend years developing the physical and psychological tools needed to construct an organoleptic and linguistic sensitivity to perceiving and describing the content of various wines. In order to investigate whether the expertise of a sommelier is embodied in the neural circuitry of their brain activity, we must venture beyond the parameter of alcohol content and look at a broad spectrum of characteristics that wine embodies.
A study published in the journal NeuroImage used fMRI on its subjects as they sampled several different wines. As the researchers suspected, the wine evoked responses in regions of the brain associated with gustatory and olfactory perception in seven of the novice control consumers. Three different wines were selected by an experienced sommelier who didn’t participate in the study: a red wine, Toscana Rosso Virente 1997; a white wine, Vermentino di Gallura 2001; and a dessert wine, Vin de table-Arline 2001.
Researchers found that, when compared to sommeliers, naive consumers did show a greater involvement of the right orbitofrontal cortex, the right superior frontal gyrus, the left hippocampus/amygdala, and the left inferior frontal gyrus during the aftertaste phase. But during this same phase, sommeliers showed a significantly greater activity in regions more specifically associated with wine tasting rather than glucose processing.
Sommeliers activated a broader cerebral network involving the brain’s left insula, the left putamen, the right inferior frontal gyrus, and bilateral dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC). These regions, which appear to have been modulated by the taster’s expertise, represent important areas of the human brain where the information acquired by tasting and smelling converge and therefore interact at a cortical level, and this exchange of information results in what we know as flavor. One of the most intriguing findings of this study was the consistent activation of the inferior DLPFC in the sommeliers.
The activation of this region which has been previously attributed to working memory, executive cognitive function, and taste — peaked during the tasting phase and stayed consistently active long after the sommeliers swallowed the wine. The prolonged activity of the DLPFC in the brains of sommeliers may be evident of their ability to optimally register and taste particular flavors in a wine that may be very complex or too subtle for the less experienced taster.
The results of this study may also support the differing approaches held by sommeliers and novice tasters when drinking wine. Sommeliers are trained to taste a wine with a technical and attentive mindset, whereas novice consumers typically experience a wine on a more general, affective mindset. The greater activity of the hippocampus/amygdala complex during the wine aftertaste phase for novice tasters when compared to sommeliers is suggestive of a more emotional and global experience of tasting.
As a passionate, but nonetheless, novice consumer myself, I can’t help but become emotionally and viscerally engaged in the wines I especially love to drink. The Amarone wine that presently sits to my left was purchased earlier this afternoon not far from my apartment. When I saw it on the shelf in the store, I recognized it immediately among the Italian reds: The slender simplicity of the bottle and the label — the words “Min Amarone” written on top, and the name “Bjørn Eidsvåg” written down below. In the middle is a bold and deep early-morning blue and midnight-black painting done by the late Norwegian painter, Kjell Nupen. I reached for the bottle and turned it around to check the alcohol content: 16 percent. Producer/wine region: Venturini, Veneto, Italy. And price: $45. My expectations were all present — an “old world” Italian red with a high price tag, high alcohol content, and fragrances of well-tenderized meats and dried fruits with hints of wood and structured tannins with a slight sweetness. That is why I bought it.
But as I drink it now, memories of great conversations with friends and family come to me slowly as a beam of late-afternoon light hits the glass and falls onto the table, like Neruda describes it — and all becomes quiet for a moment, just like Monet promised it would.
This article was originally published in the Spring 2016 issue of Brain World Magazine.
