Consumer preference for warm or cold climate wine styles is dependent on emotional responses and familiarity

Mestrado em Viticultura e Enologia - Instituto Superior de Agronomia - UL / Faculdade de Ciências - Universidade do PortoThe present work was aimed at the evaluation of a new wine tasting method based on emotional responses by a large consumer group. Subjects were characterized according to gender, smoking habits, wine knowledge, frequency of wine consumption, vinotype, 6-n-propylthiouracil (PROP) status and dark glass test. A total of 143 tasters evaluated 2 white and 2 red wines with different styles comprising emotional responses elicited by sensory perceptions. Consumers ranked the wines with a numerical scale (1 to 5) according to their preference and were asked about wine familiarity. Overall, tasters provided higher liking scores for white and red wines consistent with the international commercial style, with high odour intensity and smooth mouthfeel, in opposition to wines with low smell intensity and aggressive mouthfeel. Global evaluation was only dependent on age, individuals younger than 35 years olds giving higher scores to all wines. The Global Evaluation score was highly correlated with the mouth Impression in Relation to Odour (r2=0.83) and with lower correlations with Expectation for the Mouthfeel induced by odour (r2=0.52), Initial Odour Impression (r2=0.50) and Colour Impression (r2=0.25). Familiarity was moderately correlated with wine Global Evaluation (r2=0.49). Consumers were grouped based on the preferred wine styles. The “Primary” group (38 individuals) scored with 4 or 5 the international commercial style wines (“easy” wines), while the “Perceptive” group (16 individuals) gave scores of 4 or 5 to the cool climate wine styles (“difficult” wines). The largest group, the “Universals” was composed by individuals scoring these two wine styles with scores ranging from 1 to 5. The “Primary” group was characterized by showing responses of high pleasantness to colour, odour and taste to the “easy wines”, which were considered as familiar. The “difficult” wines were regarded as unpleasant and unfamiliar by this group. All wines were considered equally familiar by the “Perceptive” tasters who recognized the higher quality of the “difficult” wines. The “Universal” group behaved similarly to the “Primary” when tasting red wines, differing in equal preference for both white wines. In conclusion, emotional responses elicited by wine tasting proved to be a powerful tool to explain wine consumer preferences thus providing guidance to the development of marketing strategiesN/