Bees Used to Scent Out Perfect Wine

Australian scientists are buzzing (excuse the pun) with excitement over research done in Brisbane which explores the possibilities of using bees to help wine makers produce the perfect wine. I like bees, in fact I'm rather fond of them but I am groaning internally about what this could mean. Why are we as a race continually striving for perfection? Surely the “perfect” wine is subjective to the individual who is quaffing it? CSIRO plans to produce (yes, you've guessed it) an electronic nose for the wine industry to detect the key compounds in wine.

A bee's sense of smell is so precise it can distinguish between hundreds of aromas and tell whether a flower carries pollen or nectar from metres away. Dr Reinhard of the Queensland Brain Institute said scientists had discovered that, like humans, bees preferred certain smells over others.

Experiments have also revealed bees can distinguish complex perfumes – which may contain dozens or hundreds of compounds – by reacting only to a handful of chemicals and ignoring the rest.

Although bees have a brain 20 times larger than a fruit fly, they do not have a nose. But Dr Reinhard said the insects' antennae were covered in small hairs which contained odour receptors, similar to those in human nostrils.

The bouquet of the average wine contains about 800 chemicals. If scientists can pinpoint a dozen or so key molecules, these could be programmed into a "cybernose" specific for the wine industry.

The reactions of 200 bees to molecules contained in complex scents in wine grapes were used in the research. Given the amount of wasps that end up drunkenly clowning about in my glass on a summer's day I wonder it they would have been better off using them instead . . . however, I digress . . .

Yalumba's head winemaker, Louisa Rose said that:

“one of the really exciting ways that I said this could work is helping us understand the differences, the real differences between different regions and how they've produced different flavours and characteristics in wines. “

That said, once they have created this electronic nose which can sniff out the different aromas in wine, what will they use it for? Are wine makers going to isolate a particular region whose wines are full of, say, blackberry fragrances and add that to their latest batch to pep it up?

With the onset of globalisation and the generalisation that comes with it are we going to become a body of people who are offered wines tailored to fit the most popular tastes? (Isn't this starting to happen already?) Variety is the spice of life as far as I am concerned. I love finding a wine that I haven't had the pleasure of meeting before and that first taste is always a suspense. What will it smell like? What flavours will it offer as they melt across your taste buds? Wouldn't it be awful if a glass of wine held no surprises?

And of course – everyone is different, we all have different tastes. What I find to be toe curlingly unpalatable some one else will be in raptures about and vice versa. I don't want an electronic nose choosing my wine for me thank you very much.

Oh, and one last thing before I step down off my soap box – spare a thought for those poor bees! Each test they buzzed their way through lasted for 8 hours.

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