Curly, a dark skinned black woman, is leaning back on a chair in a gold sparkly dress with corks raining down on her

Synesthesia:

a condition in which someone experiences things through their senses in an unusual way, for example by experiencing a colour as a sound, or a number as a position in space*.

*Cambridge Dictionary

Synesthesia, wine and me. For a woman with a lisp, I never realised that the biggest hurdle to overcome wouldn’t be learning international wine laws, it was saying synesthesia. Or photosynthesis.

After nearly three decades of working in the wine industry and ten years of teaching the Wine & Spirit Education Trust qualifications in Tasmania, it never occurred to me that how I interpreted wine could include synesthesia. Deep in the winter of 2023, I took part in a tasting with Jean-Baptiste Lécaillon, cellar and vineyard manager since 1999 for Louis Roederer Champagne which opened my eyes to the possibilities of discussing and describing wine beyond the technical.

Come with me on this journey as I explore my synesthesia with neuroscientist Dr Lila Landowski and how it could open up a world of wine to a far wider audience by accepting alternative interpretations of wine.