Sensory evaluation and consumer preference of wine and food combinations : influences of tasting techniques

Abstract: The entire project consists of five studies. Descriptive sensory analyses were performed on combinations of five dry white wines and either Hollandaise sauce with two levels of fat or two blue mould cheeses. Assessments were carried out by a student panel and by a selected and trained panel. The effect of tasting technique on defined attributes was investigated: firstly by switching the order of serving wine and sauce or wine and cheese within the sequential tasting technique and secondly by mixing wine and cheese in the mouth, mixed tasting technique. Finally, consumers in Norway and Sweden, accustomed to drinking wine and eating blue mould cheese, carried out a preference test on wine and cheese combinations.The perception of the white wine characteristics generally decreased in intensity after the tasting of Hollandaise sauce. The buttery flavour of wine, however, increased after the tasting of Hollandaise sauce.Generally, the perception of dry white wine flavours (blackcurrant leaf, oak, mineral, spice) decreased after the tasting of both cheeses, whether the tasting was sequential or mixed.Few changes in the perception of the sauce attributes were observed after the tasting of white wine. However, lemon flavour of Hollandaise sauce decreased after the tasting of oaked wine.The perception of pronounced cheese flavours (butter, wool, basement-like) and tastes (sour and salty) decreased after the tasting of dry white wine for both sequential and mixed tasting whereas the other attributes remained unchanged.The perception of the wine attributes decreased more in the case of mixed tasting technique than in the case of sequential, while few changes in the perception of the cheese attributes were observed. Sweetness, however, increased in the Roquefort cheese mixed with certain wines.The consumers in both Norway and Sweden usually (80%) drank dry red wine with blue mould cheese. The Norwegian consumers preferred dry red wines to sweet red wines in combination with blue mould cheese. The wines rather than the cheeses separated the preferences regarding the combinations.