The first idea that comes to my head, is to confirm this statement after a slight nuance: fat is taste! It’s true for ham, it’s true for meat and everybody knows that a good ladle of cream or butter seriously enhances the flavours of any sauce worthy of its name. To reassure those who want to keep their line, I agree that food and flavours that without fat exist indeed: fruits and vegetables, honey, tofu, tea ... But nevertheless, it’s a solid truth that deep in their heart, women and men LOVE fat.

Since 2012 we probably even know why. That year, US researchers claimed the possibility that beyond salty, sweet, sour, bitter and umami, FAT may be the sixth taste. Our sensitivity and therefore our desire for fat seem to be linked to a gene called CD36. That’s a nice name and especially a good excuse for the usual dietary excesses of the season. But don’t panic, researchers from the Basque country stated that drinking two glasses of wine a day would significantly reduce the accumulation of FAT in our liver already in 2009.

Wine plays a vital role in our food balance (we already knew that!). And of course also plays a vital role in our food fun. Finding FAT taste in wine, roundness, volume, softness, is very appreciable. Those perceptions are mainly on the cooperation between residual sugars, alcohol and glycerol, but one can easily imagine that the list molecules involved in this gustatory delight is much longer. Again in 2012 (hey what was going on in research? Was it the official year of FAT?), a thesis from the University of Bordeaux revealed the existence of certain molecules from oak wood, called Quercotriterpénosides, which can bring sweetness and softness to wines aged in oak.

Want some wine and food recommendations that fit with the theme? Get a Rhône Valley Grenache, like the Rasteau from Yves Gras, and have it on black pudding, with roasted apples and curry onions, slightly cooked in butter (PS, you wouldn’t mind to have some rice with this…). You won’t be able to resist!