A dog’s sense of smell is said to be a thousand times more sensitive than that of humans. In fact, a dog has more than 220 million olfactory receptors in its nose, while humans have only 5 million. Also, I think it’s true to say that the human sense of smell is probably one of the most underutilised and underdeveloped senses that we have, but that over time, it can be trained…….

Certainly, after years in the wine business, and years as a buyer, using my own sense of smell extensively on a daily basis, I am pretty confident that mine is more evolved and sensitive than it was when I was younger – or perhaps it’s just because I’m much more conscious of using it? But then one of the most difficult things when tasting a wine for example, is quite simply converting what you taste and smell into words – but that’s another story.

Singularly the most significant fact is that probably 90% of what we perceive as taste is actually smell, and without smell the job of a wine buyer would be pretty tough. I can clearly recall that getting a cold or a touch of flu at any time of year was a complete disaster for me and rendered me almost useless (albeit that my colleagues might say that I was fairly useless anyway!) For this reason I was always well stocked up on cold remedies and vitamin-C.

The reason that I chose to write about this now is because of an incident that happened to me yesterday. I go running by the sea every day, and as I left the house at 7.30am I caught a sudden whiff of cigarette smoke. About 100 metres down the road an employee of a local hotel had slipped outside (in the open air) to have a quick nicotine fix, and my nose had picked it up from some distance. However, this asset can also be a curse as it can easily detect foul smells as well as attractive ones!

A dog’s sense of smell is said to be a thousand times more sensitive than that of humans. In fact, a dog has more than 220 million olfactory receptors in its nose, while humans have only 5 million. Also, I think it’s true to say that the human sense of smell is probably one of the most underutilised and underdeveloped senses that we have, but that over time, it can be trained…….

Certainly, after years in the wine business, and years as a buyer, using my own sense of smell extensively on a daily basis, I am pretty confident that mine is more evolved and sensitive than it was when I was younger – or perhaps it’s just because I’m much more conscious of using it? But then one of the most difficult things when tasting a wine for example, is quite simply converting what you taste and smell into words – but that’s another story.

Singularly the most significant fact is that probably 90% of what we perceive as taste is actually smell, and without smell the job of a wine buyer would be pretty tough. I can clearly recall that getting a cold or a touch of flu at any time of year was a complete disaster for me and rendered me almost useless (albeit that my colleagues might say that I was fairly useless anyway!) For this reason I was always well stocked up on cold remedies and vitamin-C.

The reason that I chose to write about this now is because of an incident that happened to me yesterday. I go running by the sea every day, and as I left the house at 7.30am I caught a sudden whiff of cigarette smoke. About 100 metres down the road an employee of a local hotel had slipped outside (in the open air) to have a quick nicotine fix, and my nose had picked it up from some distance. However, this asset can also be a curse as it can easily detect foul smells as well as attractive ones!