Wine and tasting in Italian

The thirtieth entry is la sensazione in bocca, and the noun inside it is one an English reader translates without pausing, because « sensation » sits right there and seems to fit. It fits once. La sensazione does cover the physical business this list needs — una sensazione di freschezza, una sensazione di calore — and there « sensation » is the word. But the Italian noun does a second job, commoner than the first, which « sensation » will not do at all: it is the hunch, the impression, the feeling somebody has about something. Ho la sensazione che non venga is « I have a feeling he will not come », and « I have the sensation that he will not come » is not English at all. Notice that this sense pulls a subjunctive behind it, che non venga and not che non viene. The traffic runs the other way too, because « the film was a sensation » is un successo clamoroso: a thing that causes a stir is never una sensazione, and only the fixed phrase fare sensazione, which takes no article, reaches that idea. Physical, yes; hunch, never; hit, never.