How do consumers describe cool climate wines using projective mapping and ultra-flash profile?

Fine wine recognition and appreciation: It is time to change the paradigm of wine tasting

Wine quality maybe understood under two perspectives: (a) commercial quality, intended to satisfy overall consumers, and (b) fine wine quality, aimed at achieving a product with aesthetic value. The current food sensory techniques (e.g. Descriptive Analysis) have been successfully applied to develop wines accepted worldwide and characterized by pleasant sweetish flavours and smooth mouthfeel. On the contrary, these techniques are not suited to characterize fine wines given their dependence on sensory properties with aesthetic value. The conventional tasting approaches follow the sequence of vision, smell (orthonasal), taste and mouthfeel, ending by an overall evaluation. The sensory descriptors tend to be analytic (e.g. different aromas and tastes) or synthetic (e.g. body, structure) and the quality judgement is left for the final step. Some synthetic attributes may have an aesthetic significance (e.g. complexity, harmony, depth) and are more valued when the analytic or synthetic descriptors are highly praised (e.g. oakiness, silkiness, body, minerality). Consequently, these highly praised attributes are regarded as surrogates of fine wine quality. However, commercial wines are frequently judged of higher quality than fine wines irrespective of the taster expertise. We argue that the conventional sensory analysis sequence makes the overall evaluation secondary in relation to the previous analytical steps blurring the assessment of wine's aesthetic properties. Probably due to top-down processing, the initial evaluation of colour or flavours governs the final overall quality evaluation that may be inconsistently rated. Then, to promote the recognition of fine wines, tasting should begin by first acknowledging the aesthetic properties and only proceed to the analytical steps if necessary. A tasting method is proposed to consumer educational programs where emotional responses are used to explain the differences between commercial and fine wine styles. Furthermore, cultural aspects should be included to appreciate the wholeness of wine. Hopefully, this holistic perspective would turn wine appreciation more approachable and facilitate the recognition of fine wines among consumers, increasing their appreciation and enjoyment.

Mouthfeel subqualities in wines: A current insight on sensory descriptors and physical-chemical markers

Astringency and more generally mouthfeel perception are relevant to the overall quality of the wine. However, their origin and description are still uncertain and are constantly updating. Additionally, the terminology related to mouthfeel properties is expansive and extremely diversified, characterized by common traditional terms as well as novel recently adopted descriptors. In this context, this review evaluated the mention frequency of astringent subqualities and other mouthfeel attributes in the scientific literature of the last decades (2000-August 17, 2022). One hundred and twenty-five scientific publications have been selected and classified based on wine typology, aim, and instrumental-sensorial methods adopted. Dry resulted as the most frequent astringent subquality (10% for red wines, 8.6% for white wines), while body-and related terms-is a common mouthfeel sensation for different wine types, although its concept is still vague. Alongside, promising analytical and instrumental techniques investigating and simulating the in-mouth properties are discussed in detail, such as rheology for the viscosity and tribology for the lubrication loss, as well as the different approaches for the quantitative and qualitative evaluation of the interaction between salivary proteins and astringency markers. A focus on the phenolic compounds involved in the tactile perception was conducted, with tannins being the compounds conventionally found responsible for astringency. Nevertheless, other non-tannic polyphenolic classes (i.e., flavonols, phenolic acids, anthocyanins, anthocyanin-derivative pigments) as well as chemical-physical factors and the wine matrix (i.e., polysaccharides, mannoproteins, ethanol, glycerol, and pH) can also contribute to the wine in-mouth sensory profile. An overview of mouthfeel perception, factors involved, and its vocabulary is useful for enologists and consumers.

Yeast communities before and after spontaneous fermentation of wine grapes: a case study from Nova Scotia

Wine fermentations are generally completed by the domestic yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae, but many indigenous vineyard yeasts also influence wine flavour and aroma. Despite the flourishing wine industry in Nova Scotia, there has yet to be any systematic evaluation of these yeasts in Atlantic Canada. The yeast communities of pressed L'Acadie blanc grapes sampled from an organic vineyard in the Annapolis Valley in 2018 and 2019 were characterized before and after spontaneous fermentation by both Illumina and PacBio sequencing, to address and compare potential platform biases. Chemical and sensory evaluations were also conducted. Basidiomycete yeasts, including Vishniacozyma carnescens, Filobasidium globisporum, and Curvibasidium cygneicollum, dominated pre-fermentation diversity. Species of Saccharomyces made up ∼0.04% of sequences prior to fermentation, but 85%-100% after fermentation, with some replicates dominated by S. cerevisiae and some by S. uvarum. PacBio sequencing detected high proportions of Hanseniaspora uvarum, while Illumina sequencing did not. A better understanding of Nova Scotia vineyard yeast communities will allow local wine makers to make better use of non-traditional yeasts and spontaneous fermentations to produce high-quality wines unique to the region.

Chemometric and sensometric techniques in enological data analysis

Enological evaluations capture the chemical and sensory space of wine using different techniques; many sensory methods as well as a variety of analytical chemistry techniques contribute to the amount of information generated. Data fusion, especially integrating data sets, is important when working with complex systems. The success reported when trying to integrate different modalities is generally low and has been attributed to the lack of statistically considerate strategies focusing on the data handling process. Multiple stages of data handling must be carefully considered when dealing with multi-modal data. In this review, the different stages in the data analysis process were examined. The study revealed misconceptions surrounding the process and elucidated rules for purpose-driven approaches by examining the complexities of each stage and the impact the decisions made at each stage have on the resulting models. The two major modeling approaches are either supervised (discrimination, classification, prediction) or unsupervised (exploration). Supervised approaches were emphatic on the pre-processing steps and prioritized increasing performance. Unsupervised approaches were mostly used for preliminary steps. The review found aspects often neglected when it came to the data collection and capturing which in the end contributed to the low success in combining sensory and chemistry data.

An Overview of Sensory Characterization Techniques: From Classical Descriptive Analysis to the Emergence of Novel Profiling Methods

Sensory science provides objective information about the consumer understanding of a product, the acceptance or rejection of stimuli, and the description of the emotions evoked. It is possible to answer how consumers perceive a product through discriminative and descriptive techniques. However, perception can change over time, and these fluctuations can be measured with time-intensity methods. Instrumental sensory devices and immersive techniques are gaining headway as sensory profiling techniques. The authors of this paper critically review sensory techniques from classical descriptive analysis to the emergence of novel profiling methods. Though research has been done in the creation of new sensory methods and comparison of those methods, little attention has been given to the timeline approach and its advantages and challenges. This study aimed to gather, explain, simplify, and discuss the evolution of sensory techniques.