Help! Wine tastes horrible

[atomicspacebunny]

Just a theory but you more likely have more taste buds and improved taste buds than you had before, so your sensing more of the sugary bitter properties of the wine!

[Tiarn]

Thanks! I think you might be right… I stopped short of saying that the wine tastes better… thought it was my imagination. Thanks for your insight!

[LeCheffre]

more likely have more taste buds

I don’t actually think that is how any of this works.

You don’t really taste the wine with your tastebuds. You taste the alcohol, the tannins, the salt, sweet, bitter and sour. But the rest of the taste apparatus is retronasal smelling. If you are experiencing better flavor discernment or better enjoyment of nuanced flavor, It’s much more likely that your sinus passage is less inflamed.

Developing new tastebuds would literally make you enjoy things less. Supertasters are people with more tastebuds. I am one, and have real problems with bitterness as a flavor. I used to find acidity difficult as well. As you age, you have some tastebud die off. I am enjoying having fewer, more than I ever enjoyed having more.

[atomicspacebunny]

Then improved olfactory nerves?

Unconventional wine expert says the number of taste buds determines your wine preferences: “…And the tolerant taster, who has the fewest number of taste buds, is “more likely to like everything,” says Hanni. To determine which category each of the judges falls into, Hanni will swab their tongues with blue food coloring before photographing them under a magnifying glass. The fungiform papillae, small mushroom-shaped structures on the tongue that hold microscopic taste buds, will remain pink. By counting them, he will know who is hypersensitive, sensitive or tolerant. She says the food-color experiment can be done by anyone at home. Besides painting your tongue blue, Bartoshuk suggests using a hole puncher to cut two 6-millimeter circles out of a piece of paper. Position the cutout holes on the right and left sides of the tip of the tongue. With a magnifying glass count the number of fungiform papillae. If you have an average of 35 or more between the two openings, you’re a supertaster. Fewer than 35, but more than 10, means you’re a taster, says Bartoshuk - or sensitive in Hanni’s terminology. Fewer than 10 puts you in the tolerant, or nontaster category. …” …More

[Tiarn]

It’s much more likely that your sinus passage is less inflamed.

Olfactory nerves?

[LeCheffre]

A: unconventional and b: as an example of how he’s not entirely wrong, 15 years ago I couldn’t really enjoy any big tannic red. Triggered my bitter receptors. Now, having some die off, that’s mostly what I prefer to drink.

But really, don’t trust me. Next time you have a glass of wine, pinch your nose while you swirl it in your mouth.

[LeCheffre]

Not really nerves. Scent receptors.

[OldDoug]

Tastes buds are back and my breath has returned to normal… fat adapted?

It was the same for me - part of a week went by, and all was well. I remember being somewhat devastated the first time, i.e. “Life is just not going to be the same…”

Quite a few drugs and medical treatments havde physical/chemical effects which include affecting our taste and smell. While going to ketogenic eating isn’t known for doing that, and while you did have a strong reaction, perhaps there was something it took you a few days to get used to…?