Mixed Profiling: A new tool of sensory analysis in a professional context. Application to wines

Recent Advances and Future Perspectives in the E-Nose Technologies Addressed to the Wine Industry

Electronic nose devices stand out as pioneering innovations in contemporary technological research, addressing the arduous challenge of replicating the complex sense of smell found in humans. Currently, sensor instruments find application in a variety of fields, including environmental, (bio)medical, food, pharmaceutical, and materials production. Particularly the latter, has seen a significant increase in the adoption of technological tools to assess food quality, gradually supplanting human panelists and thus reshaping the entire quality control paradigm in the sector. This process is happening even more rapidly in the world of wine, where olfactory sensory analysis has always played a central role in attributing certain qualities to a wine. In this review, conducted using sources such as PubMed, Science Direct, and Web of Science, we examined papers published between January 2015 and January 2024. The aim was to explore prevailing trends in the use of human panels and sensory tools (such as the E-nose) in the wine industry. The focus was on the evaluation of wine quality attributes by paying specific attention to geographical origin, sensory defects, and monitoring of production trends. Analyzed results show that the application of E-nose-type sensors performs satisfactorily in that trajectory. Nevertheless, the integration of this type of analysis with more classical methods, such as the trained sensory panel test and with the application of destructive instrument volatile compound (VOC) detection (e.g., gas chromatography), still seems necessary to better explore and investigate the aromatic characteristics of wines.

Very beyond subjectivity: The limit of accuracy of Q-Graders

When it comes to the sensory analysis of specialty coffees, it is necessary to discuss the protocol of tests of the Specialty Coffee Association (SCA) and the formation of Q-Graders as reliable parameters in the sensory analysis. However, the training of these Q-Graders and the use of the SCA protocol has generated discussions in the scientific community and demonstrated the importance of talking about the level of professional precision as well as the use of the protocol. This study sought to understand the relation of accuracy and efficiency of the Q-Graders and protocol in the sensory analysis of coffees. Three experiments were carried out to evaluate and test the hypotheses regarding the level of precision in relation to the shift, the number of samples and the judgment abilities of Q-Graders due to the quality of the specialty coffee and nonspecialty coffee. These three experiments were performed by seven Q-Graders in an isolated environment during three consecutive days with 137 specialty coffee samples and 7 nonspecialty coffee samples as defined by the SCA. The results indicate that the Q-Graders present high precision when evaluating excellent and outstanding coffees, as defined by the SCA. In addition, the effect of the shift did not exert fatigue on the Q-Graders. However, evaluation errors were made by the Q-Graders on very good coffee (77.00-80.00 points), which are considered as nonspecialty by the SCA, thus allowing a more in-depth discussion on what would be the boundary between a specialty and nonspecialty coffee. PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS: The article deals with the sensory evaluation process of coffees, and it has great importance to teaching and research institutions in Brazil, the largest producer, largest exporter and the country with the highest concentration of coffee scholars in the world. The article focuses on a new approach and a new way of looking at the sensory evaluation process of coffees, using the methodology of the Specialty Coffee Association to analyze the accuracy and efficiency of the Q-Graders.