DEVELOPMENT OF A QUANTITATIVE SENSORY METHOD FOR THE DESCRIPTION OF YOUNG RED WINES FROM RIOJA ALAVESA I. ETAIO 1 , F.J. PÉREZ ELORTONDO 1,3 , M. ALBISU 1 , E. GASTON 1 , M. OJEDA 1 and P. SCHLICH 2 1 Laboratorio de Análisis Sensorial Euskal Herriko Unibertsitatea (LASEHU) Facultad de Farmacia Universidad del País Vasco/Euskal Herriko Unibertsitatea Paseo de la Universidad, 7, 01006 Vitoria-Gasteiz, Spain 2 Laboratoire d’Interface Industrie-Recherche-Sensométrie (LIRIS) Centre Européen des Sciences du Goût (CESG) 15 rue Hugues Picardet, 21000 Dijon, France Accepted for Publication October 2, 2007 ABSTRACT A quantitative sensory method was developed to evaluate young red wines from Rioja Alavesa and find the most suitable attributes to describe them. Twenty-four attributes (including appearance, aroma, flavor, taste and mouthfeel attributes) were chosen. Combined quantitative references were developed for these attributes aiming to lower the total number of references to be tasted. Nineteen wines were evaluated at four different times (every 2.5 months after bottling) by a panel trained in the use of this methodology. Attributes were compared in terms of overall intensities, and discriminative power of the attributes was assessed by analysis of variance, considering both sample and time effects. Appearance, taste and mouthfeel attributes revealed to be the most important to describe and discriminate the wines. “Red berry,” “floral,” “aroma intensity” and “dark berry” were the most important aroma attributes to discriminate among the wines, whereas “alcoholic” and “herbaceous” were the most important in flavor. PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS This work provides three main practical applications. First, a list of terms for sensory description of wines from Rioja Alavesa is provided. There are no 3 Corresponding author. TEL: 34-945013075; FAX: 34-945013014; EMAIL: franciscojose.perez@ ehu.es Journal of Sensory Studies 23 (2008) 631–655. All Rights Reserved. © 2008 The Author(s) Journal compilation © 2008, Wiley Periodicals, Inc. 631