Representation of complexity in wine: Influence of expertise

The aim of the present study was to investigate the concept of complexity in wine as a function of domain-specific expertise. Thirty-nine wine professionals and 30 wine consumers participated in interviews aimed at inducing verbal responses concerning their representations of (i) wine complexity in general, (ii) wine complexity in relation to white wine with perceived ageing ability, and (iii) wine complexity in relation to red wine with perceived ageing ability. The verbal data were analysed with the textual data analysis software ALCESTE (Reinert, 1983, 1986, 2001, 2008). Results showed that wine professionals as a group tended to represent complexity in wine in terms of extrinsic factors such as oenological processes (e.g.. lees stirring: use of oak) and terroir variables (e.g., soil; viticulture: see Moran, 2006). On the other hand, wine consumers' representations of wine complexity were dominated by intrinsic factors relating to their experience of consuming wine (e.g., smell and taste of wines) and were personalised and subjective (e.g., about their own enjoyment and pleasure). Further, wine professionals' representations clearly differentiated between characteristics of white wine with ageing potential and characteristics of red wine with ageing potential whereas those of wine consumers did not. The results are discussed in terms of the salient components of the concept of complexity in wine, including wine judged to have ageing ability, along with the cognitive processing associated with wine expertise. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.