A technique which gives Australian wine researchers insight into how Chinese professionals view their product has been in the works.
The technique, called pivot profiling, enables a comparison of a series of wines to a control wine, and was used by Wine Australia, National Wine and Grape Industry Centre (NWGIC) and Australian Wine Research Institute (AWRI) researchers during a sensory analysis workshop at Vinexpo Hong Kong recently.
Pivot profiling specifically provided an insight into how Chinese wine professionals describe Australian shiraz.
Australia’s showcase at the event was supported by the Australian government’s $50 million Export and Regional Wine Support Package.
The trade fair gave NWGIC and AWRI researchers the chance to collect data while promoting Australian wine.
The workshop gave an insight into the language used by Chinese trade members to describe Australian shiraz, and the learnings will be compared to those from a future workshop with the wine trade in the US later this year.
The workshop was part of a number of masterclass seminars organised by Wine Australia with members of the Chinese wine sector taking part, including influential wine educator Corinne Mui and Beijing-based Fongyee Walker MW.
Pivot profiling is a rapid data collection method that asks people not to assess and describe wines in isolation, but to compare each wine to a control wine, the pivot.
