Sweet truth in vino's varied taste

AMONG wine's many virtues is that it is ideal to use in consumer taste tests because it neutralises a tendency in subjects to make socially appropriate responses, according to sensory scientist Anthony Saliba.

AMONG wine's many virtues is that it is ideal to use in consumer taste tests because it neutralises a tendency in subjects to make socially appropriate responses, according to sensory scientist Anthony Saliba.

"So, with cake, people have a tendency to say they like the non-sweet product because they know that's the so-called healthy response," Saliba says.

They feel no such compulsion with wine, so it is easier to establish who has a sweet tooth. This has proved very useful because it has enabled Saliba, from Charles Sturt University's National Wine and Grape Centre, to collaborate with psychologists at the Britain's Sheffield Hallam University on some applied research in the area.

"They were interested in how personality style develops throughout lifespan, and the link between personality and obesity," he says of his English colleagues.

Working with 45 subjects from the Sheffield area, the team conducted taste tests and personality tests, finding people who preferred sweet wine were likelier to be impulsive and had a lower level of openness.

These links are regarded as worth exploring in future studies.

Impulsiveness predicts a willingness to try new things, including foods. Lack of openness operates altogether differently, so that if, for example, bad dietary habits are established early in life, they are likely to persist throughout.

Saliba says that, given a preference for sweetness is established in the womb, if a simple test can be devised to establish whether a preference for sweetness exists in a child, parents would have a good chance of effectively managing diet to lessen the risk of obesity.

They also would be more understanding of the innate desire for sweet things and make sure the diet was balanced to accommodate that.

From the point of view of the wine industry, Saliba hopes the information will help with the tricky business of predicting what consumers like in wine, given medal counts from wine competitions are not an accurate indicator of what consumers prefer.

For example, there are quick quizzes customers could be asked to complete at the cellar door, to determine whether they are high on impulsiveness. "Appeals to that could be woven into welcome speeches at the cellar door."

It also has implications for label design: "We now know that if you like a dry wine you have a higher level of openness, which means the innovative labels should probably be used on those bottles, whereas the tendency has been to put them on thesweet wines."