University of Adelaide researchers are investigating the links between wine, where it’s consumed and the emotion it produces to provide consumer insights to the wine industry.
The trial involves 360 wine consumers who have been sampling specific wines in different environments, and rating their emotional response on a specially devised ‘wine emotion scale’.
The participants blind tasted four wines in three different settings – a restaurant, at home and in the sensory laboratory. They rated 19 different emotions the wines may have prompted ranging from warm-hearted or nostalgic through to tense or irritated on a scale of 1-9.
Project leader Dr Sue Bastian, Senior Lecturer in Oenology and Sensory Studies, in the School of Agriculture, Food and Wine says much work has been done on sensory analysis of wine, but just knowing what flavours consumers like and don’t like is not enough.
“We need to learn from the food and perfume industries and understand how wines affect our emotions – and the role emotions play in influencing what we choose to drink at certain occasions and how emotions affect our purchasing decisions,” she says.
According to Bastian, there are characters in wines which may generate negative emotion; but the study also seeks to uncover what it is about wine which drives positive emotion.
“Ultimately we want to have a clear understanding of our emotional response to wines and help the Australian wine industry, worth over $2.4 billion domestically, utilise this knowledge in its product development, differentiation and marketing.”
The project has an international collaboration with Dr Herb Meiselman, a pioneer of emotions research, and is funded by the Australian Grape and Wine Authority.
360 wine consumers have been sampling specific wines in different environments as part of the study.
