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22 p r a c t i c a l w i n e r y & v i n e ya r d J a n U a r y 2 0 1 5 W I N E M A K I N G Gary J. Pickering, Cool Climate Oenology and Viticulture Institute, Department of Biological Sciences, and Department of Psychology, Brock University (St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada) (Author e-mail: gary_pickering@brocku.ca) BY W ine is renowned and valued for the variety and complex- ity of sensations that it elic- its, including visual (hue, intensity and clarity), olfactory (ortho- and retro-nasal aroma), taste (sourness, sweet- ness, bitterness and saltiness), and those associated with the chemesthesis and somatosensory systems. When activated by wine, the latter two systems contribute to what we experience as "tactile sensa- tions" or mouthfeel, with polyphenolic compounds (tannins) recognized as one of the main elicitors in red wine. Mouthfeel is widely recognized as an important quality indicator for red wine and may be an important component of overall consumer appeal. 9 However, mouthfeel has not been well-studied, possibly due to the absence of a com- monly accepted definition and difficul- ties in measuring the typically subtle sensations it encompasses. R. Gawel et al. have developed a red wine "mouthfeel wheel" (RWMW) — a hierarchical lexicon designed to assist in identifying and classifying these com- plex oral sensations. 12 In addition, these authors identified reference standards that may be used for training judges to describe and measure individual mouth- feel attributes. "At a glance" White wines can elicit a wide range of taste and mouthfeel sensations, some of which may be qualitatively different to those elicited by red wine. Through extensive sensory panel work involving 136 wines and 21 sessions, a lexicon, set of definitions, evalua- tion protocol, and reference standards have been developed to describe and measure the oral sensations elicited by white wine, including table, sparkling, dessert, dealcoholized and fortified styles. The lexicon is presented as a hier- archical wheel structure. These tools can be used to more fully define the influence of viticultural and enological variables on white wine quality and to aid in the training of and commu- nication between wine professionals. The results of one such application of the mouthfeel wheel are summa- rized where lactic acid bacteria strains were shown to influence the texture of Chardonnay wines in different ways. D I S CR E T E F I N I S H E A R L Y I N TE G R A T E D W h i t e W i ne M o u t h f ee l W hee l Figure 1: White Wine Mouthfeel Wheel. Terms are categorized as DISCRETE or INTEGRATED (consisting of more than one sensation or concept). DISCRETE categories/sensations are ordered clockwise according to their approxi- mate order of perception or maximum intensity. Outer-tier terms for Surface Texture, Irritation, Mouthcoat, Overall Drying and Length represent reference descriptors and/or standards for quantifying sensations. Color code: Brown = attributes predominantly elicited by sparkling wines; yellow = Taste qualities; deep green = Non-Taste sensations; light green = Surface Texture attributes; purple = INTEGRATED qualities. Copies of this wheel and related resources can be purchased from mouthfeelwheel.com. Gary J. Pickering, 2006 Describing elicited by white wine oral sensations These standards are often fabrics, papers and other materials, assessed manually, that represent the oral equiv- alent of the sensation. As an aid to descriptive analysis panels, the RWMW has helped with measuring the impact of processing and compositional vari- ables on the subtle mouthfeel character- istics elicited by actual and model red wines. 5,6,7,11,14,29,30,31 White wine White wine can elicit the basic tastes This text was first published by the Journal of Wine Research, 2008, Vol. 19, No. 1, and is edited and reproduced here with kind permission of the publisher, Routledge Journals, Taylor & Francis group [tandf. co.uk.] First published in Practical Winery & Vineyard, January/February-2009.