Modelling the sensory space of varietal wines: Mining of large, unstructured text data and visualisation of style patterns

Cultural differences in wine conceptualization among consumers in France, Portugal and South Africa

Consumers' mental pictures of wine are multifaceted and are shaped by their sensory (taste, smell, visual, sensation) perceptions, in addition to emotional, cultural and extrinsic (brand, price, and awards) influences. This study explores whether consumers from three different wine cultures share mental representations of three wine concepts. Through an online survey, French, Portuguese, and South African wine consumers described their conceptualizations of Wine, Red wine and White wine aroma. Given these nations' rich winemaking traditions and diverse wine styles, differences in consumer perspectives were likely to emerge. The findings demonstrate that, regardless of cultural background, the broad concept of Wine aligns with the more specific Red and White wine conceptualizations, although the latter concepts diverge from each other. Notably, cultural contexts significantly influence participants' representations of Red Wine, with particularly marked contrasts between the South African and French respondents. This suggests that like experts, wine consumers have also built representations of wine through semantic memory. This cross-cultural analysis of consumer interpretations of wine concepts holds the potential for refining marketing strategies to overcome cultural barriers in wine purchasing behaviour.

Prevalence of symptoms, comorbidities, fibrin amyloid microclots and platelet pathology in individuals with Long COVID/Post-Acute Sequelae of COVID-19 (PASC)

BACKGROUND

Fibrin(ogen) amyloid microclots and platelet hyperactivation previously reported as a novel finding in South African patients with the coronavirus 2019 disease (COVID-19) and Long COVID/Post-Acute Sequelae of COVID-19 (PASC), might form a suitable set of foci for the clinical treatment of the symptoms of Long COVID/PASC. A Long COVID/PASC Registry was subsequently established as an online platform where patients can report Long COVID/PASC symptoms and previous comorbidities.

METHODS

In this study, we report on the comorbidities and persistent symptoms, using data obtained from 845 South African Long COVID/PASC patients. By using a previously published scoring system for fibrin amyloid microclots and platelet pathology, we also analysed blood samples from 80 patients, and report the presence of significant fibrin amyloid microclots and platelet pathology in all cases.

RESULTS

Hypertension, high cholesterol levels (dyslipidaemia), cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) were found to be the most important comorbidities. The gender balance (70% female) and the most commonly reported Long COVID/PASC symptoms (fatigue, brain fog, loss of concentration and forgetfulness, shortness of breath, as well as joint and muscle pains) were comparable to those reported elsewhere. These findings confirmed that our sample was not atypical. Microclot and platelet pathologies were associated with Long COVID/PASC symptoms that persisted after the recovery from acute COVID-19.

CONCLUSIONS

Fibrin amyloid microclots that block capillaries and inhibit the transport of O₂ to tissues, accompanied by platelet hyperactivation, provide a ready explanation for the symptoms of Long COVID/PASC. Removal and reversal of these underlying endotheliopathies provide an important treatment option that urgently warrants controlled clinical studies to determine efficacy in patients with a diversity of comorbidities impacting on SARS-CoV-2 infection and COVID-19 severity. We suggest that our platelet and clotting grading system provides a simple and cost-effective diagnostic method for early detection of Long COVID/PASC as a major determinant of effective treatment, including those focusing on reducing clot burden and platelet hyperactivation.

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.

Mapping the Sensory Fingerprint of Swedish Beer Market through Text and Data Mining and Multivariate Strategies

The continuous increase of online data with consumers’ and experts’ reviews and preferences is a potential tool for sensory characterization. The present work aims to overview the Swedish beer market and understand the sensory fingerprint of Swedish beers based on text data extracted from the Swedish alcohol retail monopoly (Systembolaget) website. Different multivariate strategies such as heatmaps, correspondence analysis and hierarchical cluster analysis were used to understand the sensory space of the different beer styles. Additionally, sensory space for specific hop cultivars was also investigated. Results highlighted Gothenburg as the main producing area in Sweden. The style Indian Pale Ale (IPA) is the largest available at the retail monopoly. From a sensory perspective, commonalities and differences were found between beer types and styles. Based on the aroma description, different types of ale and lager can cluster together (such as Porter and Stout and Dark lagers). Additionally, an associative relationship between specific aromas and hop cultivars from text data information was successfully achieved.

The Impact of "Wine Country of Origin" on the Perception of Wines by South African and French Wine Consumers: A Cross-Cultural Comparison

Culture is an important factor that influences how marketing interacts with food choice. This study aims at exploring the effect of consumers' Country of Origin (COO) on wine representations and perception using Chenin blanc as a model. The first objective was to evaluate the role of origin in the construction of the representation. We used the theoretical framework of social representation to compare South African (SA) and French consumers' representations via a word association task. The results indicated that SA representations are dominated by consumers' experience of the wine (sensory and emotional dimensions), whereas French representations are dominated by the wine itself, in particular its origin and mode of consumption. The second objective was to evaluate the effect of origin on wine categorization in two conditions: with and without information concerning the two geographical origins of the samples. Results showed that providing information on the origin of the wines affected French participants more than SA participants. In both conditions, the groups of wines formed in the sorting tasks by SA participants were based on sensory descriptors and appeared not to be impacted by the information on origin. In contrast, providing information on the origin of the wines to French participants led to an increased use of the words "Loire", "South Africa" and "familiar" suggesting a different sorting strategy more deliberately based on the origin of the wines. Our findings have important implications for the marketing and export activities within the wine industry.