The sensory features of the landscapes

When someone watches a hilly landscape, the image beauty creates emotions and frames of mind not easily forgettable, but sometimes man’s intervention by means of soil movement and reduction of the natural biodiversity can significantly modify the landscape and consequently the above-mentioned emotions. One speculates if sensory appreciation of a wine may be strongly affected by psychological factor: landscape beauty. Just before the beginning of the trial, an analysis of the territorial features (morphology, vineyard extension, biodiversity, etc.) was performed in order to well characterise the typical landscape of Conegliano and Valdobbiadene hills. Since 2004 sensory evaluations of Prosecco wines coming from the two above mentioned viticultural areas was carried out with the aim to evaluate how landscape emotionally influences wine appreciation. The results proved the important role of the frame of mind (created by the projected images) on wine perception: landscape becomes an added value for the wines. A change in the original morphology of the landscape will result in a different emotional acceptability, and also the wine quality perception will be affected. In this trial, both the chemical composition of the grapes (sugars and aroma compounds) and the sensory perception of the wines (olfactory notes) were shown to be significantly influenced by soil movement. There is a loss of vocation due to the soil disruption, and a comparison between natural and moved soils proved that there was a great difference in terms of microbial activity and root development probably due to the lack of organic matter.