HOW TO EVALUATE THE QUALITY OF NATURAL WINES?
Abstract
The movement of Natural wines has clearly increased in the last few years, to reach a high demand from consumers nowadays. Switzerland has not been left out of this movement and has created a dedicated association in 2021. This association has the ambition to develop a specific tasting sheet for natural wines. The study of the tasting notes shows that the olfactory description of wines is recent but predominant today. But wine is a product makes to be drunk and not (just) to smell it. Based on these findings, a new 100-point tasting sheet has been developed. The main characteristics are 1) an evaluation in the mouth before the description of the olfaction, 2) to give 50% of the points on the judgment for the mouth characteristics, 3) to pejorate the visual aspects only if the wine is judged as “not drinkable” and 4) to express personal emotions. This sheet was tested during a national wine competition. In order to validate the capability of it to discriminate good and bad wines, several wines were selected; gold or silver medal wines and other wines with different scores. Chemical and microbiological analyses were performed on these wines. They were also described by an sensory expert panel according to the Check-all-that-apply method. This study highlights the sensory and chemical characteristics of “good” and “bad” natural wines. Moreover, we illustrate that it is possible to make natural wines without oenological deviations or that sometimes, these deviations can also bring a little complexity, as long as the intensity remains low. Analytic should be always completed by tasting !
DOI:
Issue: OENO Macrowine 2023
Type: Poster
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Keywords
Natural wines, Tasting sheet