introduction.
What is flavor? What causes it? What information is encoded in the flavors we taste, the smells we smell?
Often taste and smell are linked with memories: one whiff of a glass of Frank Cornelissen nerello mascalese wine can take you directly to the summertime slopes of Mount Etna. Wine tasters call this ability of a glass of wine to encode information about climate, time, geography and soil health “terroir.” What is the scientific basis for terroir?
Emerging genomics research is showing that microbial activity could be a strong factor in not only the production of tastes and smells that create what we perceive as flavor; it’s also showing that specific microbiomes may function as the unique identifiers for particular terroirs.
In “Microbial biogeography of wine grapes is conditioned by cultivar, vintage, and climate (2014)”, Bokulich, et al suggest that there are significant correlations between each of temperature, geolocation and temporality with corresponding unique microbial communities. As a result, the same grapes grown by one winemaker down the coast from another demonstrate significantly different microbiomes.
This research points towards a future where we can demonstrably identify terroirs of wines and other food products. The next challenge will be to identify the function that different pathways of microbiomes play in producing flavor.
We understand the role that some metabolic pathways play in producing flavor, but there are miles to go in research to match the complexity of microbiomes in the world. However, as we understand more and more about the interactions between different microorganisms and their metabolic inputs and outputs, we will have a better chance of discerning why particular “microbial terroirs” produce noticeably different flavors.