Wine

Science programme: Sensory & consumer science

The New Zealand Sauvignon blanc and Pinot noir wines have received international accolades, which has resulted in wine becoming a major New Zealand export product. What flavours characteristics make New Zealand wines so unique?  Our scientists used consumers and trained sensory panels to answer this question. Our research has yielded a flavour profile of New Zealand Sauvignon blanc that has specific reference standards that define each attribute. The sensory profiles of these wines are correlated with analytical flavour data to determine if there are specific flavour compounds which explain New Zealand uniqueness. These attributes and references standards are available to New Zealand winemakers and marketers to aid in a better understanding of the wine composition and can be utilise to encourage dialog of specific characteristics of the wine through a unified understanding.

In our research we anticipate linking the different New Zealand styles with specific export markets through consumer studies conducted in targeted markets.  We will, in turn, link these consumer preferences to our trained panel data to explain the flavour drivers for each export market. Our goal in consumer research is to try to gather preference information in a more natural setting such as in the home or restaurant where the product is consumed.

Our wine sensory panels define flavour profiles in research wines from different research groups, including yeast scientists from the University of Auckland and viticulturists from Marlborough Wine Research Centre and Lincoln University. This is to aid their research through understanding variables they have manipulated and the flavour changes that resulted in the wines.