Back in 2003, a rather reputable gentleman out of Bordeaux reported on the isolation and characterization (chem.-speak for “they proved that the molecules isolated had the structure that they thought they did, and were the molecules they thought they were”) of 3 key thiols present in reputable aged champagne (yes, we’re talking Cristal people). These 3 key thiols give aged champagne its characteristic “empyreumatic” (this is a French word meaning “the range of odours that are given off by organic matter that is heated, burnt or distilled (e.g. roast coffee, hot chocolate, jam, cooked fruit, burnt rubber, etc)”) nature, and thus distinguish it from young champagne…indeed they are not present in significant quantities in young champagne and are only formed in the bottle with aging. Now this initially leads us to the question of what thiols are in the first place – thiols are rather smelly chemical compounds familiar to most of us as the cloying smell of garlic or a skunk’s spray. Obviously our noses are rather sensitive to them and the reason they smell the distinct way they do is due to the presence of a sulfur atom in the midst of hydrogens and carbons, e.g. H3CH2CSH, which looks like:
Now, these 3 thiols that this reputable Frenchman isolated as representative of grand old bubbly smell of roasted coffee beans, cooked meat and smoked meat respectively, and can be structurally depicted as: 
So basically, when you’re drinking your next bottle of old Cristal and remarking on how well it has aged, remember that it’s all about the stinky thiols!
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