The effects of wine components on the sensory perception of wine faults
Consumer perception can have an influence on repeat purchases, and as a result, initial exposure to a wine should be a positive and memorable experience. The wine industry directly benefits from positive consumer experiences. Wine components such as ethanol, tannic acid, and tartaric acid may affect the sensory perception of the faults in a wine and, therefore, acceptability. If the wine components have the ability to alter the perception of faults, decreasing the amount of the fault detected in the headspace lessens the chance the wine would be rejected aromatically and, thereby, increases the rejection threshold concentration. Conversely, if the components increase the perception of faults, the rejection threshold concentration is lowered and the chance the consumer would reject the wine is greater. In this study, seven common wine faults (2,4,6-trichloroanisole, ethyl acetate, acetic acid, 4-ethylphenol, 4-ethylguaiacol, 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, and acetaldehyde) were chosen to determine the effects that wine components (ethanol, tannic acid, and tartaric acid) have on aromatic wine faults. Different levels of concentrations of the individual components were studied using static headspace gas chromatography mass spectrometry and sensory assessment and analysis. Both the instrumental and sensory analysis demonstrated there was a negative correlation between the ethanol concentration and the amount detected in the headspace of the wine fault, while the other wine matrix components had no statistically significant effect (P≤ 0.05), except in the case of acetic acid, for which only sensory analysis showed a statistically significant negative correlation, while instrumental analysis showed no statistically significant effect. This demonstrates that wine components can have a significant influence on how an aromatic fault is perceived, and understanding this phenomenon can assist winemakers in ensuring that their product offering and brand integrity is maintained, resulting in consumer acceptability and future sales
Kim, D., Marcone, M., Soleas, G, Findlay, C. J. & McNicholas, P. (2016). The effects of wine components on the sensory perception of wine faults. In: Society of Sensory Professionals 2016 Conference. 26-28 October. Atlanta, Georgia, USA.