Semantic and perceptive organisation of Sauvignon blanc wine characteristics: Influence of expertise

Abstract

The influence of expertise on hierarchical organisation of knowledge about Sauvignon blanc wine sensory properties was investigated. Sixteen wine professionals (‘experts’) and 16 wine consumers in New Zealand organised 67 experimenter-provided descriptors of Sauvignon blanc wine by building an hierarchical tree with the sensory properties (see Urdapilleta, Giboreau, Manetta, Houix, & Richard, 2006). Each participant organised the Sauvignon blanc sensory properties under two conditions, a Semantic condition (memory-based) and a Perceptive condition (experiential). The Perceptive condition followed the Semantic condition and involved participants tasting three Sauvignon blanc wines, previously rated high in typicality (see Parr, Green, White, & Sherlock, 2007), prior to organising the wine sensory properties. This condition contrasted with the Semantic condition in which participants formed the hierarchical classification of the provided wine terms from memory. We employed a model described by Schlich (1994) to interpret the data and explore consistency within and between participants. Results showed that experts and wine consumers overall organised the wine sensory properties in similar ways, but that wine consumers were less homogeneous in their classifications, demonstrating that they lacked the shared cognitive constructs relating to Sauvignon blanc wine knowledge exhibited by the experts. Further, wine experts performed similarly across conditions, demonstrating an ability to conceptualise Sauvignon blanc from memory in much the same way that they conceptualised the wines when experiencing (i.e., tasting) exemplars. On the other hand, wine consumers’ hierarchical classifications differed across conditions. The results are discussed in terms of the cognitive processing associated with developed wine knowledge.