There is a sensory experience that some folks have where they SMELL numbers or SEE sounds. Jimi Hendrix HEARD the color blue and physician Richard Cytowic wrote about one of his patients who tasted chicken as angular. Check out his interesting book “The Man who Tasted Shapes.”
Synesthesia is a state in which sensory experiences are cross-wired in the brain. Some say this is ‘pathological’ while others like winemaker Randall Grahm say we should all be synesthetes when it comes to wine – to use all of our senses.
The legendary maestro of California wine Andre Tchelistcheff is said to have experienced wines in bigger shapes after he stopped smoking.
Looks like it tasted -merlot
When I taste wine I experience it as smooth or sharp, rough or soft. My language lacks poetic descriptions yet my photography shows shapes in wine and the chemicals of taste that are intriguing to those of us lost in our senses. The first wine I ever photographed “looked like it tasted” according to its winemaker Theo Rosenbrand. And since then I’ve been exploring the science and pleasure of our senses.
Do you taste shapes? Do you prefer angular or rounded wines? Would their shape influence what food you’d match with them?
Here are two more red wines, one is a cab, another pinot . How do you think these wines might taste?
Top image: Pinot Noir Freeman Sonoma Coast
Kosta Browne Pinot Noir Santa Lucia
Right Pinot Noir Kosta Browne Santa Lucia Highlands
2000 Long Meadow Cab at 5 yrs
More Links about Synesthesia:
This last post reminded me of a shamanic practice in which we open to each of our senses, one at a time, and our consciousness is altered, expanded. I never thought of it as synesthesia… an example – feel the sun on your skin, taste it, smell it… more later.