Selection of Products Presenting Given Flavor Characteristics: An Application to Wine

A two-step strategy to select food samples presenting defined flavor characteristics was developed and applied to the selection of wines with a berry flavor. A sorting test was conducted on a large number of samples with an inexperienced jury. It was followed by a qualitative descriptive analysis of the wines selected during sorting conducted with a trained jury. The sorting procedure followed by multidimensional scaling analysis of data proved successful as an exploratory and qualitative instrument and as a preliminary step to the more traditional descriptive analysis. The method allowed specific selection of a consistent number of wine samples, which was less time-consuming than developing a traditional sensory profile.