The exotic fruits and fresh citrus notes leapt out of the Pyrenean white wine, but wine-taster Sophie Pallas said the delicate undertones of pineapple were harder to detect than they would have been before she fell ill with COVID-19. Like so many infected with the coronavirus, Pallas lost her sense of taste and smell, a nightmare scenario for a master wine taster that has forced her to slowly retrain her nose and palate. Pallas' story highlights the pandemic's risk not just for vintners, sommeliers and wine tasters in France's multi-billion dollar wine industry but also for chefs, parfumiers, chocolate makers and others for whom finely-tuned taste buds or noses are vital tools of the trade.