PhD Précis: Amalia Bernardes Borssato

Sensory scientist Amalia Bernardes Borssato is pulling apart ‘green’ and ‘herbaceous’ to get a handle on what these characters represent, as well as their individual roles in sensory perception of Pinot Noir from experts and non-experts alike. In this Q&A, Amalia offers insights into her PhD research: The importance of green: Understanding green and herbaceous characters in Pinot noir wine and their role in driving judgments of perceived quality.

What led you to become a sensory scientist?

My curiosity to understand individual mindsets and my desire to help people make smart, healthy choices regarding their food and beverage consumption led me to sensory science. During my master’s in food quality and consumption at the University of Campinas-Brazil, supervised by Dr Helena Bolini, I had the opportunity to delve into and apply a series of sensory evaluation methods testing different product categories such as beverages, snacks, and dairy products. At that time, I realised how powerful and unique the human senses and sensometrics are at helping the industry reduce expenses and at the same time develop healthier and tastier products that make consumers happy.

Why is wine a good avenue for sensory studies?

Wine is a complex product appreciated worldwide. However, wine appreciation is subjective depending on the type of wine and who is drinking it. Various nuances of aromas and flavours coming from different components such as fruity, floral, green/ herbaceous, or spicy notes can be perceived differently by individuals. Besides a wine’s organoleptic characteristics, the ‘3V’s’ of a wine – varietal, vineyard and vintage – play an important role in its performance in terms of the perceived quality. Sensory studies involving cognitive and affective dimensions (e.g., what people think about specific wine phenomena and how they feel when they perceive it) allow researchers to access reliable information about wine and correlate with relevant viniviticultural aspects to its identity and commercial value.

What influences an individual’s perception of a wine?

The concept of wine quality is a multidimensional construct based on personal beliefs and previous experiences. In line with that, prior research has demonstrated that consumers from varying levels of domain-specific expertise can have different precepts and concepts regarding key wine phenomena. In order to have a representative population of potential wine consumers and investigate the expertise-perception effects, a topic of scientific interest, the present study considers two groups of participants, namely, wine professionals and standard wine consumers.

What’s the good and the bad of green and herbaceous, according to your research?

Initial results indicate that, based on both wine professionals’ and wine consumers’ perceptions, the most influential descriptors related to green and herbaceous notes driving positive wine quality perception were ‘stemmy/whole bunch’, ‘freshness’, and ‘smoky’. On the other hand ‘reductive notes’, ‘tomato stalk’, and ‘fresh herbs/rosemary/ sage/mint leaf ’, respectively, were the main descriptors driving negative perception of quality in New Zealand Pinot Noir wines that were evaluated in this study. The experiments proposed in the PhD Program are still undergoing, data are still being collected and analysed. I am excited about publishing a wider picture of our work very soon.

Where to from here?

We expect in due course to associate the sensory data produced within this project with sensory data from the wider national Pinot Noir research programme, as well as with viniviticultural aspects (e.g., wine price, wine method of production) and with data produced by researchers in other disciplines (e.g., chemistry).

Who has helped you in your work?

I feel blessed to have my family’s support in my career goals overseas. I am grateful to have funding from Bragato Research Institute (BRI) and Lincoln University for this research. There are also key people involved in this project, who are either on hand or behind the scenes; without their help the work at this stage could not be done: Dr Wendy Parr, an enlightened human being and inspiring professional that I have as a mentor; my supervisor Dr Damir Torrico, a very talented person who teaches me the true meaning of commitment and resilience; my assistant supervisor Dr Leandro Dias, who patiently and kindly helps me with his expertise in winemaking and wine chemistry; staff from Lincoln University, Bragato Research Institute, and Plant & Food Research, who efficiently help me with the logistics or execution of wine experiments and events; all wine professionals and consumers who voluntarily took the time to participate in our experiences; and winemakers who provided us with wine samples or important information about wines.