The Scent of Remembering
Words by Alannah Bayard, photos by Ignacio Muñoz
By the time everyone arrives, my kitchen is already too warm and I’ve barely finished negotiating with my four year old to pay a visit to the land of nod. There’s usually foccacia cooling on the side, something slow-cooked bubbling away on the hob (to facilitate the longer than ideal bedtime routine, no less), and a playlist that I have curated over the last ten years muffling the sound of Mama having fun. Friends gather around the kitchen island while I apologise there’s still at least twenty minutes before dinner, handing someone a corkscrew anyway. As the first glass is poured, I strike a match and light a candle.
Open the bottle. Light the candle. Feed the people. It’s a small, almost instinctive ritual that signals that this is a moment that matters.
Working in wine has made me wonder why those rituals feel so important. Why popping a cork or lighting a candle can change the atmosphere of a room before anyone has even taken a sip. The answer, it turns out, begins with our sense of smell.
Unlike our other senses, smell has a remarkably direct connection to the parts of the brain responsible for emotion and memory. Before we’ve had time to think, we’re already feeling. It’s why the scent of woodsmoke can transport us to childhood, or why the perfume of lavender suddenly reminds us of someone we haven’t thought about for years.
Psychologists call it the Proust phenomenon, after the famous scene in Marcel Proust’s In Search of Lost Time, where the aroma of a madeleine dipped in tea unlocks an entire world of forgotten memories. Whether it’s freshly cut grass, sea air, tomato vines in a greenhouse or a favourite perfume, scent has an extraordinary ability to collapse time.
Wine has always understood this. Long before we notice acidity or texture, we’re responding to aroma. Around 80% of what we describe as flavour is actually smell. It’s why wine professionals spend so much time sniffing a glass before tasting it, and why the question is often not What can you smell? but What does it remind you of?
The answer is rarely just blackberries or blossom.
It’s Sunday lunch at your grandparents’. A holiday in Provence. Autumn walks. Fresh bread. A greenhouse on a warm afternoon. Wine isn’t simply tasted; it’s experienced through memory.
At Balfour Winery, that philosophy has always extended far beyond the bottle. The estate has never been about producing wine for wine’s sake. It’s about creating memorable experiences around it. Whether that is the vineyard walk before lunch or witnessing friends discovering English wine for the first time, a bottle simply creates the opportunity. The memories are made by the people gathered around it.
Head Winemaker Fergus Elias understands better than most that aroma is where a wine’s story begins. Every decision in the winery influences what rises from the glass: the fruit that’s selected, the way it’s fermented, the time a wine spends on its lees and the patience required to let those aromas unfold. Before we’ve analysed a wine, we’ve already started to feel something about it.
Watching that process unfold over many years gave Balfour Winery co-founder Leslie Balfour-Lynn an appreciation for the remarkable relationship between fragrance and memory. Surrounded by vineyards, gardens and the changing seasons, she became fascinated by how certain scents could instantly evoke a place or a feeling long after the moment itself had passed.
Rather than recreating the smell of wine, Leslie set out to capture the memories that surrounded it.
Using essential oils, she created a collection of candles inspired by the people and places closest to her. Each fragrance is named after one of her children, alongside Liberty, the family’s much-loved dog, and each tells its own story.
Skye’s captures the simplicity of lavender brushed against on a summer walk. Luke’s evokes winter evenings with warming notes of cinnamon and orange. Nannette’s invites you to pause and take a moment to smell the roses, where Liberty’s recalls peaceful mornings among the vines with white thyme, basil and geranium. The most recent Jake’s candle, takes you on a journey through ancient woodland. The fragrances reflect the same deeply personal connection between family, home and the landscapes that have shaped Balfour Wines for years.
Like wine, the candles are also intentionally open to interpretation.
The same fragrance will remind one person of childhood holidays and another of a favourite garden. A sparkling wine may transport someone to a wedding, while someone else remembers a picnic or an evening spent with old friends. The maker can suggest a story, but the memory always belongs to the person experiencing it.
Perhaps that’s why opening a bottle of wine and lighting a candle feel so instinctively connected. Neither creates the memory on its own, but both invite us to slow down and pay attention while it’s happening.
Years from now, I probably won’t remember exactly what we ate around my kitchen table or which vintage we opened. But I’ll remember who was there. I’ll remember the conversation that somehow lasted until midnight. And, I’ll almost certainly remember how the room smelled.
Perhaps that’s why Balfour Winery has always believed wine is only ever part of the experience. The real magic happens around the table.
Bring the Ritual Home
The Balfour Winery Candle Collection is hand-poured using essential oils and inspired by the people and places that have shaped the estate.
Available online and from the Cellar Door at Balfour Winery.
£35
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