Physico-chemical properties and mouth-feel in New Zealand Pinot Noir wines

Abstract

A number of chemical and physical parameters that were suggested to be involved in the astringency and body, aspects of mouth-feel, including alcohol, organic acids, pH, titratable acidity, reducing sugar, tannins, phenolics, polysaccharides, proteins, glycerol, viscosity, specific gravity, extract, and the reactivity of tannins with protein, were determined for 18 New Zealand Pinot Noir wines of six producers from the 2010 and 2011 vintages. The wines were previously tasted by a professional palate, M. Cooper MW, for astringency and body evaluation. A sensory analysis of the wines was also conducted at Lincoln University, New Zealand, using the Shapley ranking method to evaluate the intensity of the wines when tasted with and without visual and olfactory influence. Statistical analysis using principal component analysis, correlation analysis and canonical variate analysis showed the following results: (a) viscosity, alcohol and glycerol were the major contributors to wine body, although the differences of wine body between the samples were not substantial; (b) producer was the most influential factor in grouping the wines when considering the variance of mouth-feel related parameters between samples.