Off-Flavours and Unpleasantness Are Cues for the Recognition and Valorization of Organic Wines by Experienced Tasters.

Mylena Romano,Valéria Minim,Mkrtich Harutunyan,Cristian Villegas,Manuel Malfeito-Ferreira,Mahesh Chandra,Taciana Savian

doi:10.3390/foods9010105

Abstract

The drivers of consumer acceptance concerning organic wines are not well understood. In particular, among wine professionals, there are anecdotal evidences claiming that consumers accept off-flavours that would not be tolerated if the wines were conventionally produced. Therefore, the aim of this study was to shed further light on this issue by tasting blind wines of both types of production using a tasting panel comprised by experienced individuals of several nationalities. The tasted wines were both conventional and organic and were with and without off-flavours. The same wines were evaluated in three tasting sessions where the given information was: (1) all wines were conventional, (2) all wines were organic, and (3) tasters were asked to guess the mode of production. A group of untrained tasters also rated the same organic wines in an informed session. The results showed that wines were significantly better scored and were given a higher willingness to pay value in the “organic” session. In addition, the experienced tasting panel produced a list of the most frequent sensory descriptors. When tasters were asked to guess the mode of production, wines that were supposed to be organic received a higher citation of off-flavours, such as “oxidized”, “reductive”, and “animal/undergrowth”. Moreover, an overall emotional response of unpleasantness was associated with the recognition of organic wines in the “guess” session. Untrained tasters rated the same organic wines with lower liking scores and were willing to pay less. In conclusion, off-flavours and their unpleasantness worked as a cue to identify wines supposed to be organic by experienced tasters. Their corresponding higher valorization could be explained by the psychological halo effect induced by the organic label. Contrarily, consumers did not show this halo effect, depreciating wines with unpleasant flavours irrespective of their mode of production.

Highlights

In recent years, consumers have become increasingly concerned about the effects of conventional agricultural production practices on both human and environmental health
The results show that the “organic” concept is positively recognized by trained tasters, illustrating the well-known “halo effect” in sensory analysis, where, even before tasting, individuals are already prone to giving higher liking scores and willingness to pay ratings
The novelty of this work stands in evidencing the acceptance of off-flavours when tasters were informed about the organic label of the wines

Summary

Introduction

Consumers have become increasingly concerned about the effects of conventional agricultural production practices on both human and environmental health. Schäufele and Hamm [5] studied the consumers’ perceptions, preferences, and willingness to pay for wine with sustainability characteristics. The results suggested that producing and marketing wine with sustainability characteristics is a promising strategy for quality differentiation, for wine that is both local and organic. There is empirical evidence suggesting that the image of organic products has a stronger effect on consumer perception than the intrinsic characteristics [6]. The so-called halo or blurring effect can modify the sensory perception of products in terms of a positive image for organic and origin labelled food products and a negative one for more conventional products

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