Sensory attributes of Rioja red wines and their relationship with quality perception of consumers
Résumé
A complex problem in food product is to identify what are the parameters driving
consumers’ liking. The main goal of this study was to apply the technique classically
used to understand consumer preference, internal preference mapping to the quality
assessment of twenty-nine red wine by eighty-five regular consumers. The wines were
subjected to a sensory descriptive analysis by trained panelist and to a categorization
task by consumers’ preference. Quality assessment was performed by means of a
categorization task which was subsequently correlated to the aromatic wine sensory
space obtained.
The PCA carried out on the wine*consumers matrix showed a wide dispersion in
quality perception among consumers. The HCA indicates the presence of three well
defined groups of consumers (QC1, QC2 and QC3) Pearson correlation coefficients
show no significant correlations between the three groups of consumers indicating a
quality concept different between them.
The concept of quality of the three groups of consumers when they evaluate wines aged
in oak barrels is directly related to the presence of "toasted/wood” and the absence of
the veggie/animal attributes. It is noteworthy that only the consumers QC2 considered
positive the concept of fruity and floral aromas as quality in a wine barrel aged.
Mouthfeel attributes described for these wines were considered in a different way for
the quality assessment carried out by the three consumer groups.