Sensory Analysis — An Alternative to Wine Tasting? Available to Purchase

The sensory characteristics of a wine are critical in determining its acceptability, and particularly repeat purchases. Assessments of wines are often made by expert wine tasters, however the use of sensory analysis methods offers an alternative approach that is less reliant on the expertise of one individual. This paper outlines a number of different sensory analysis methods, and gives examples of situations in which the methods might be used. These include the use of triangle tests to evaluate packaging materials, the use of scaling methods to evaluate changes in particular sensory characteristics as a result of changes in processing parameters, the use of sensory profiling to characterise a wine and determine changes that occur during storage, and the use of consumer testing to determine the key sensory characteristics of importance to a particular market segment.