The wine you really want
New research aims to discover what triggers drinkers' choices. Ben Canaider reports.
''I DON'T know much about wine, but I know what I like." This wonderfully banal democratic truism sends a ripple of disgust through any gathering top-heavy with wine connoisseurs.
The theory goes something like this: if you don't know wine you can't be part of the world of wine, therefore I don't want to know you. Wine, in this regard, has always been a bit exclusive. But maybe that is starting to change.
Enter Anthony Saliba, a sensory research scientist at the National Wine and Grape Industry Centre at Charles Sturt University. He has a PhD in sensory psychology and an undergraduate degree in biochemistry, with a major in psychology. "This brings together the winemaking and sensory, since fermentation is essentially a biochemical reaction," he says
For two years Saliba has been working to match wine consumption to consumers. Now there's an idea. Until now we've been matching the consumer with the wines we make, which just might explain why Australia has such a low per capita wine consumption.
He says his research is based on giving consumers a voice. As he points out, over 10 years-or-so there's been a shift in the way the wine industry tries to reach its customers. He says there is now a "customer-centric approach". The problem is, what do customers want in wine? "Until now we have had to train consumers in wine, to teach them what they are supposed to like; so we have no shortage of opinion, but we have no data."
Drawing on psychology and sensory analysis, Saliba is devising a taste-tested methodology. The idea is to find that missing data - the information that tells us what people like and dislike in the wine they drink. Or don't drink, as the case may be.
Saliba starts out in the traditional manner, giving a panel of wine experts a number of samples of wine to be blind tasted. Tasting notes are formed. This is all done in a sensory laboratory conforming to the relevant international standards and uses an approach called descriptive analysis, again following several international standards, to produce a profile that is reproducible.
The same wines are then poured and served to a panel of consumers. They try the wine and are asked "Do you like it?". Back at the research level, the wines that are "liked" are then compared to see if any similarities in their tasting notes exist. Chemists then see what chemical markers are present in the "liked" wines. At its logical conclusion this could then tell winemakers what chemical markers - or flavours and smells - consumers liked in the wine. Winemakers could then make wine that consumers wanted - and enjoyed drinking.
I can hear pinot sniffers splitting the seams of their corduroy ensembles in outrage.
But as Saliba hastily adds, he is not trying to stop winemakers pursuing certain styles of wine. He is just interested in helping some winemakers make wine they know will sell. Given that consumer research shows that what wine experts like isn't always what consumers like, there's a gap in the market.
"The best recent example to fill the gap is New Zealand sauvignon blanc, commanding high prices because consumers like the taste so much," Saliba says. He adds that while the super-premium end of the wine market in Australia is only about 1% of sales by volume, the "taste-proven", or normal drinker market, might be closer to 25% by volume.
The wine that Saliba is currently researching is Hunter Valley semillon, as it is a wine that continues to impress at wine shows and within the walls of the wine industry, but popular sales don't necessarily follow. Wine shows have been good templates, but they haven't helped innovation, he believes.
There's more to this "matching wine consumption with consumers" research than mere commercial benefits, however. Saliba sees social benefits to the work he is doing. "Wine can be such a fun product. Yet too many Australians don't like it. There's no data to back this up, of course. Yet wine can really transcend over-use issues," he says.
In this sense, Saliba is really onto something. If wine could become the beverage of choice for more Australians, the multi-layered health benefits that are so often associated with drinking wine might start to flow more freely. Up until now wine has very much been a "build-it-and-they-will-come" product.
Saliba wants to take wine to the people. And that can't be a bad thing.
I can hear pinot sniffers splitting the seams of their corduroy ensembles in outrage.
But as Saliba hastily adds, he is not trying to stop winemakers pursuing certain styles of wine. He is just interested in helping some winemakers make wine they know will sell. Given that consumer research shows that what wine experts like isn't always what consumers like, there's a gap in the market.
"The best recent example to fill the gap is New Zealand sauvignon blanc, commanding high prices because consumers like the taste so much," Saliba says. He adds that while the super-premium end of the wine market in Australia is only about 1% of sales by volume, the "taste-proven", or normal drinker market, might be closer to 25% by volume.
The wine that Saliba is currently researching is Hunter Valley semillon, as it is a wine that continues to impress at wine shows and within the walls of the wine industry, but popular sales don't necessarily follow. Wine shows have been good templates, but they haven't helped innovation, he believes.
There's more to this "matching wine consumption with consumers" research than mere commercial benefits, however. Saliba sees social benefits to the work he is doing. "Wine can be such a fun product. Yet too many Australians don't like it. There's no data to back this up, of course. Yet wine can really transcend over-use issues," he says.
In this sense, Saliba is really onto something. If wine could become the beverage of choice for more Australians, the multi-layered health benefits that are so often associated with drinking wine might start to flow more freely. Up until now wine has very much been a "build-it-and-they-will-come" product.
Saliba wants to take wine to the people. And that can't be a bad thing.