Who likes which sparkling and why?

Associate Professor Kerry Wilkinson is getting exceptional value out of 50 bottles of sparkling white wine and 24 of Moscato.

They are the basis of a two-pronged research study looking to determine what wine styles and attributes appeal to different consumer groups, as well as whether there are any consistent chemical markers in the wines that are indicative of quality.

Funded by Wine Australia, it’s a project where science meets marketing and involves A/Prof Wilkinson, an oenologist, and colleagues from the University of Adelaide and the University of South Australia, as well as specialists from Charles Sturt University (CSU) in Wagga Wagga.

The first step was to ask a sector reference group to select 50 sparkling white wines across the four key production methods – Carbonated, Transfer, Charmat and Methode Traditionelle – that presented a cross section of what Australian wineries are producing. An expert panel rated the quality of each wine, using the Australian 20-point judging system. A trained panel then completed descriptive analysis, rating the intensity of key aroma, flavour and palate attributes.

For the consumer phase of the project, CSU Consumer Sensory Scientist Professor Anthony Saliba used statistical analysis to identify six wines that were representative of the entire sensory profile. Fortuitously, these included at least one wine from each production method.

Next, 150 consumers provided information about themselves, their wine knowledge and their attraction to sparkling wine, before blind tasting the 6 wines and giving their honest opinion. Analysis of their responses allowed the consumers to be divided into four separate segments.

Looking for demographic links between people in each segment – such as age, gender, education, income or level of wine knowledge – starts to build a picture of whether certain types of consumers are more attracted to specific styles of sparkling wine.

‘That’s useful for the sector, because it allows particular wine styles to be marketed to consumers in a certain segment. For example, some consumers aren’t going to appreciate the complex characters of Method Traditionelle sparkling wines, but they might instead like a lighter or fruitier style’, A/Prof Wilkinson said.

The same process was then repeated with the Moscato, and there were some surprises.

‘I have to admit I probably stereotyped Moscato as fruity and sweet, but the descriptive analysis was quite varied and the panel could differentiate quite a lot – some a bit tropical, some more confectionary, some with developed characters off a simple base’, A/Prof Wilkinson said. ‘I also suspected that Moscato was just an entry level wine, but a number of highly involved consumers were quite favourable towards it.’

Full findings from the consumer study are expected to be published in a matter of weeks.

In the second part of the project, due for completion in May, all 50 sparkling white wines underwent fairly extensive chemical analysis, with the researchers looking at protein and polysaccharide content, amino and organic acids, and aroma and flavour volatiles. Wine composition was then compared with the expert panel’s rating of each wine.

‘We generated a lot of data and that’s what we are trying to work through to understand if there is something in any of those suite of measurements that we’ve made that links through to quality ratings. Is there something that’s in the wines that were given high scores, but not in the lower scoring wines?

‘Hopefully there are going to be some key compositional markers that we can use to identify quality.’

A/Prof Wilkinson said it’s been ‘a great project to work on’. ‘As a chemist, sparkling wine is an interesting style because it’s so diverse – trying to understand how the different techniques are driving the different sensory attributes.’