Development of a quantitative sensory method for the description of young red wines from Rioja Alavesa

A quantitative sensory method was developed to evaluate young red wines from Rioja Alavesa and find the most suitable attributes to describe them. Twenty-four attributes (including appearance, aroma, flavor, taste and mouthfeel attributes) were chosen. Combined quantitative references were developed for these attributes aiming to lower the total number of references to be tasted. Nineteen wines were evaluated at four different times (every 2.5 months after bottling) by a panel trained in the use of this methodology. Attributes were compared in terms of overall intensities, and discriminative power of the attributes was assessed by analysis of variance, considering both sample and time effects. Appearance, taste and mouthfeel attributes revealed to be the most important to describe and discriminate the wines. Red berry, floral, aroma intensity and dark berry were the most important aroma attributes to discriminate among the wines, whereas alcoholic and herbaceous were the most important in flavor.