As promised, we will maintain the organization of the World Congress every two years. The 3rd World Science & Wine Congress will be from 14 to 16 June 2023 in Vila Nova De Gaia and the Douro region. The topic for this scientific meeting here will be “Sustainability of wine production and food systems in the Mediterranean region”.
5th Edition of the Wine Active Compounds (WAC) Congress, Dijon 2022
After two successive postponements, the fifth edition of Wine Active Compounds (WAC) 2021 happened in the Palace of the Dukes of Burgundy in Dijon, France, from Wednesday June 29 to Friday July 1, 2022, under the auspices of the UNESCO Chair “Culture & Traditions of Wines” and the Institut Jules Guyot at University of Burgund.
Correlating wine astringency with physical measures – current knowledge and future directions
Oral tribology receives growing attention in the field of food sciences as it offers great opportunities to establish correlations between physical parameters, such as the coefficient of friction, and sensory effects when interacting with components of the human mouth. One important aspect covers the astringency produced by wine, which can be described as the sensation of dryness and puckering in the mouth, specifically occurring between the tongue and the palate after swallowing. Therefore, this post reports the resulst of a study which aims at shedding some light on recent trends to correlate physical measures, such as the coefficient of friction derived by oral tribology, with prevailing theories on underlying physiological causes for sensory perception of wines. Some successful cases reported the potential of correlating wine astringency perception with the coefficient of friction in tribological experiments. Our critical assessment demonstrates that the findings are still contradictory, which urgently asks for more systematic studies. Therefore, the authors summarize the current challenges and hypothesize on future research directions with a particular emphasis on the comparability, reproducibility and transferability of studies using different experimental test-rigs and procedures.
Umami in fermented beverages
In the present post authors present a summary of the results obtained in a study where for a wide range of fermented beverages in terms of their e free amino acid (FAA) composition and they provide quantitative evidence that beverages with long yeast contact may contain larger amounts of free glutamate and hence hold a greater potential for imparting umami than beverages with no or little yeast contact. To the extent that umami-synergy is a key in pairing fermented beverages and foodstuff, the results presented in the present post may be useful for practitioners in the restaurant and beverage business. For example, it may provide a quantitative basis for the claim that sake is also a good companion with shellfish and other fish and that some beers may be just as good as long-time fermented wine and champagnes in terms of umami taste pairing of food and beverages.
Do we really understand what experts tell us about wine?
Expert wine tasters have a greater ability than non-experts to discriminate between and evaluate the sensory properties of wine. In this study the authors explore non-experts’ understanding of a set of 64 terms which are frequently used as descriptors of the sensory properties of wine. The results reinforce the idea that when people describe wine or convey information, there is a serious risk of misunderstandings occurring when experts communicate with standard consumers. This indicates a necessity for wine industries to invest in research aimed at ensuring that experts (e.g. sommeliers, oenologists or producers) refer to the same basic sensory dimensions relating to wine as standard consumers. The present paper aimed to raise the question of whether the dimension referred to by experts (in the present case relating to a wine’s body or its acidity, for instance) matches the dimension that non-experts think of. This study has shown that modelling these dimensions in terms of opposite poles (which is typical of some tasting scales used by experts) also works quite well for standard consumers.
Wine Sense: Tasting wine without scores or metaphors
The post of this week is a book recommendation “O Vinho Sentido”. Books are very good friends to help us in isolation situations like this one. PLEASE STAY AT HOME.
2019 In Review
This is the last post of 2019. The second year of Science & Wine existence, time for a brief reflection. This was a great year!
Post Nº 100
This is the post number 100. One hundred of weekends that I spend writing, reading, illustrating, editing and publishing the posts. The time that I spent do it is just part of the time I stole to the family, special to my youngest daughter, so today I decided to involve her in this project. The illustration is her authorship.
Wine Science Cafés are great. At least, I think so.
Engaging the public on science has often presented challenges. One approach to address these challenges is through the Science Café, or Café Scientifique. In January of 2019 this format started to be used in wine research area in Wine Science Cafés in Portugal. The aim of this post is to make a reflection about the mean and importance of these events.
Wine Summit: An open letter to Paddy Cosgrave
This is open letter to Paddy Cosgrave to thank him for the idea of wine summit. Science & Wine is a project of science communication regarding wine. This project started with the “Science & Wine: From the terroir to the glass” a one-day conference that occurred in Porto in 2017. Inspired in the conference success Science & Wine blog was born in 22 of January of 2018. Next year will start the Wine Science Cafés, which will be a great opportunity to engage in a two-way communication, where scientists can share new evidences, techniques, and applications but also will be aware of public expectations and concerns. In 2019 It will also the 1st Science & Wine World Congress will take place 8-10 May 2019 in Alfândega Congress Centre in Porto. It is my obligation, as researcher to communicate science and extension service is one of my major responsibilities.