Senses and Swedish Wines Experienced at Different Temperatures

The experience of wine includes perception of odour, taste, flavour and texture. To some extent also our sense of hearing may be included. It is well known that sparkling and still white wine are recommended to be served chilled. Light white wines are to be served at 6-8°C and more complex wines at 10-12°C. The sensory experience changes with temperature. Mainly the perception of flavours is more intense with a higher temperature due to a higher extent of released volatiles. Sparkling wines should be served between 6-10°C or sometimes even lower. A low temperature prolongs the sparkling sensation, which is a main character of sparkling wines in combination with tastes and flavours. Perception of both flavours and “bubbles” are thus dependent on temperature. The aim was to study the effect of temperature on the sensory experience of white wine and sparkling white wine.
A Swedish white wine (Immelen) and a sparkling white wine (Josefinelust), from Kullaberg Vineyard, were analysed at three different temperatures, white wine: 6, 12 and 20°C and sparkling white wine: 4, 10 and 18°C. Descriptive sensory analysis and gas chromatography – mass spectrometry by headspace sampling with SPME-fibre were used to analyse these wines.
Serving temperature had significant impact on sensory experience and released volatiles. Flavours of the wines consist of combinations of many different chemical compounds, which is in line with earlier studies. Thus, it is not possible to explain sensory attributes by only a few compounds. The perception of sparkling sensation was highly dependent of temperature, which significantly changed the bubble size. A higher release of off-flavours in sparkling wine together with temperature effect on bubble size, we argue that the sensory experience of sparkling white wine is dependent on serving temperature to a higher extent than the experience of white wine.