It?s the most complete organ. It?s situated in the upper part of the nose, right at the top of the nostrils. The area where the sense of smell is situated that is very sensitive is the pituitary. In the ceremony of tasting it behaves as follows.

The air we breath, charged with volatile substances when we smell a wine impress the pituitary. For that reason when we have a cold it affects the pitiutary and we don?t perceive any smells at all.

The smells are not always perceived in a clear way. Besides, we should consider that sometimes some smells mask the others, or they mix producing a new smell reinforcing it or putting it off. The smell is not infallible. To be able to know and classify the substances, they have to accomplish three conditions.

• They have to be volatile, that is to say they have to pass on through the air.
• They have to be soluble in the smelling mucous.
• Finally they have to have smell. This is not always obvious, because not all the substances in nature smell.

Some products usually present in the air (oxygen, nitrogen, water etc.) don?t smell, they are not noticeable by the mucous. If they smelled, the pitiutary would always be impressed and the sense of smell would end up by collapsing itself. Once again nature proves to be wise. Therefore the intensity and the quality of the aromatic characteristics of wine will be the ones to determine, if they are felt or not by the wine taster and to what a degree.