Lira Souza Gonzaga, Dimitra Capone, Susan Bastian, Lukas Danner, and David Jeffery*
*The University of Adelaide, PMB 1, Wine Central Building, Waite Campus, Glen Osmond, Australia (david.jeffery@adelaide.edu.au)

Wine typicity encompasses the influence of terroir, cultivar, viticulture, and winemaking and enables recognition and characterization of unique varietal wines from a de- limited geographical area. Notions of provenance and typicity have traditionally been important indicators for high-quality wines from Old World wine producers but are also significant for countries like Australia that seek to increase the value of regional wines and grow a reputation as a fine wine-producing nation. This project focused on Cabernet Sauvignon wines, Australia’s second-most important variety, and used different approaches to identify the sensory attributes responsible for the distinctive profiles of three Australian wine-producing regions: Coonawarra, Margaret River, and Yarra Valley. Cabernet Sauvignon-dominant Bordeaux wines were also included for benchmarking purposes. To begin, content analysis was undertaken with over 2500 online wine reviews from six well-recognized websites, demonstrating an initial regional profile and aiding in selection of wines for further study. Additionally, an expert panel evaluated 86 commercial 2015 Cabernet Sauvignon wines. This involved a sorting task, a short description of each group formed, and a quality rating. This approach evidenced different descriptors for each region and had good agreement with the results of the content analysis, especially in terms of quality (RV coefficient of 0.826), with a number of common descriptors arising such as “green” for lower-quality wines and “dark fruits” for higher-quality ones. Subsequently, a subset of 52 wines underwent descriptive analysis (DA) with a trained panel. Between the expert sorting task with descriptions and DA, shared attributes were determined to be important for different regions, such as “savory” and “cooked vegetables” commonly used to de- scribe wines from Bordeaux and Yarra Valley, “mint” being significant for Coonawarra wines, and “floral” for Margaret River wines.

Funding Support: ARC Training Centre for Innovative Wine Production