Wine and Maths (by Gordon M. Shepherd)

Gordon M. Shepherd (1933- ) is a prestigious neurologist at Yale University. A few months ago he published a book entitled Neuroenology (Columbia University Press). It is a follow-up to a book published five years ago entitled Neurogastronomy. In the new book, Shepherd analyses the challenge to the brain of tasting the almost unfathomable complexity of wines, and concludes that this work is creative; to the extent that he subtitles his book: how the brain creates the taste of wine – the act of tasting is thus affected by age, gender or memory. In the promotion of his book, Shepherd used a phrase that the author of this post, a mathematician and lover of good wine (see the post Perfect travel partner), is quite sympathetic to:

Tasting wine stimulates the human brain as much or more than solving a mathematical problem.