Effect of culture and familiarity on wine perception: a study with British and Spanish wine experts

The main objective of the present work was to evaluate the effect of culture through familiarity of wine technical experts on the perception of wine quality. A total of 32 wine experts from the United Kingdom and Spain undertook two sensory tasks with a total of 18 still white wines from these countries. The first assignment consisted in a descriptive task followed by a labelled free sorting task. The second assignment was a categorisation task in which experts had to classify the samples into groups based on five pre-established quality categories (ranging from very low to very high quality). Finally, experts evaluated their level of familiarity with the grape varieties employed. Results showed that grape variety was a key marker of the sensory profile of the evaluated wines. Wines made of the Albarino variety were described mainly as sour and as having a white fruit aroma, Verdejo wines were mainly sour and had fresh fruity aromas, the Bacchus variety was described as having floral aromas, and the Ortega wines as having oxidised, animal and defective aromas. In terms of perceived quality, leaving aside the wines of the Ortega variety, which showed an oxidation character resulting in the lowest quality scores according to both British and Spanish experts, it was observed that there is a clear effect of familiarity on the perception of quality. Spanish experts were significantly more familiar with Verdejo and Albarino varieties than with Bacchus, resulting in higher quality scores for Spanish varieties. In contrast, quality scores of the Bacchus wines and the wines produced from the two Spanish varieties were not significantly different in terms of quality according to the British experts, as were the familiarity scores reported by this group of experts. This work increases knowledge about the formation of quality perception and confirms the effect of familiarity on perceived quality among wine experts, highlighting the importance of cognitive factors in the construction of wine perception.