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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 5 w i n e M A K i n G Wendy V. Parr, Faculty of Agriculture & Life Sciences, Lincoln University, Christchurch, New Zealand E-mail: wendy.parr@lincoln.ac.nz BY T hat wine is capable of providing us with great pleasure is well-doc- umented historically through the arts and literature. More recently science has entered the picture, with pub- lished research concerning emotion and wine consumption beginning to elucidate the nature of the relationship between hedonics (i.e., pleasure) and wine. 2 That wine also can cause us to think is perhaps less romantic but is equally well- documented, casting doubt on French philosopher Pascal's notion that emotion and cognition are separate systems that seldom interact. 4 Emotion and cognition are very easy bed-fellows when it comes to wine. An everyday example is how a sip of wine can evoke memories of a past experience or encounter, the memories often highly emotional and autobiographical. 5 But not all wines inspire either great emotion or much thought, despite their chemical composition being fundamen- tally similar and objectively complex (comprising many volatile and non-vola- tile components). 10 If the ability of a wine to evoke cerebral (cognitive) and sensorial responses is not a given, what makes any particular wine encourage thought? A reasonable assump- tion is that a wine we consider "complex" has a higher probability of doing so than a wine we consider "simple." The question then becomes "what dif- ferentiates wines that are considered more toward the complex than the sim- ple end of the continuum?" For example, are wines with many per- ceivable components the most likely to be considered complex and to challenge us intellectually and sensorially? Or, per- haps the converse, namely that well- integrated and seamless wines appear more complex? Recent work by sensory scientists in France and New Zealand has begun to investigate just what constitutes per- ceived complexity in wine. Two studies are summarized below, each employing a very different methodology. Mental representation of complexity in wine A collaborative project between Lincoln University in New Zealand and the University of Paris VIII in France aimed to ascertain the specific wine attributes subsumed within the concept "complex" as a function of wine expertise. Thirty wine consumers and 39 wine professionals from New Zealand and Australia were interviewed individually using a Free Association methodology to ask about their notion of complexity in wine under three study conditions: 1) wine complexity in general; 2) wine complexity in relation to white wine vin de garde (wine with potential to develop well in the cellar); and 3) wine complex- ity in relation to red wine vin de garde. 7 In the first condition, participants were asked: "Thinking about wine, can you give the first words that come to mind when I say 'complex?'" Within a 10-second, time constraint a maximum of four words or expressions per person was recorded by the interviewer and these comprised the verbal data called "induced words." Subsequent aspects of the procedure involved participants defining and elabo- rating upon their induced words (for example, ordering their induced words in terms of their importance to complex- ity in wine), and participating in the two subsequent conditions of the study. Wine is capable of providing us with great pleasure; that wine can also cause us to think is perhaps less romantic. What makes any particular wine encourage thought? Despite its Freudian roots, this free- association method is well-grounded in current models of memory and thinking and thus there are precedents for analyz- ing and interpreting the data from the participants' verbal responses. 8 All responses from participants to the word "complex" were subjected to Alceste statistical analysis which begins by quantifying the words and expres- sions to provide word frequencies in the the nature of perceived in wine Intrinsic Extrinsic Intrinsic Extrinsic Organolep c quali es Evolving wine complexity Wine produc on Quality Olfactory/ Gustatory Image/Brand acid; yeast; MLF; barrel; volatile acidity grape; aspect; people; smell; Shiraz dry; sweet; tannin/bitter; nose; earthy quality; difficult; depth; good; heavy weight; balance: mouthfeel; palate; interest; multidimensional (not) simple; secondary; lees Wine professional Wine consumer A B Figure 1. Dimensions of perceived complexity in wine as a function of wine expertise. MLF = malolactic fermentation. [Figure first published in Food Quality & Preference, 22, p. 657, 2011].