Meeting the demands of climate change: Australian consumer acceptance and sensory profiling of red wines produced from non-traditional red grape varieties

To endure the challenge of climate change, the Australian wine industry could adopt new wine grape varieties more tolerant of these pending conditions. The aims of this study were to (i) generate sensory profiles and (ii) gain knowledge about Australian wine consumers' liking of Australian and international wines made from selected drought resistant, red wine grape varieties not traditionally grown in Australia but better suited for a changing Australian climate. A Rate-All-That-Apply (RATA) sensory panel (n = 43) profiled 24 commercial red wines made from 9 purportedly drought-tolerant red grape varieties, plus a single example of an Australian Cabernet-Sauvignon, Grenache and Shiraz wine. A subset of 10 wines was subjected to preference trials with Australian red wine consumers (n = 113) and underwent basic chemical composition measures. Consumers liked all 10 wines, scoring them greater than 5.7 on a 9-point Likert scale. The Fine Wine Instrument (FWI) identified 3 consumer segments (Wine Enthusiasts (WE); Aspirants (ASP) and No Frills (NF)). WE liked the 2 Touriga Nacional and Nero d'Avola wines significantly more than the NF consumers and the Graciano significantly more than the ASP. Correlation tests determined that the WE segment liked wines with aromas of vanilla, sweet taste, jammy, confectionary, vanilla and woody flavours and a non-fruit after taste, and the attributes responsible for the ASP segment's liking of the wines were red colour, jammy and toasty/smoky aromas, jammy and savoury flavours and alcohol mouthfeel and non-fruity aftertaste. NF consumers liked wines with aromas of vanilla, confectionary, jammy and red fruit flavours; smooth mouthfeel and a fruity aftertaste, but disliked wines displaying aromas of cooked vegetables and savoury, bitter taste, flavours of cooked vegetables, forest floor, green pepper and herbaceous, and rough mouthfeel. WE liked wines reminiscent of Cabernet-Sauvignon, Grenache and Shiraz while the ASP and NF consumers had preferences leaning towards wines similar in style to a Shiraz and Grenache, respectively. These findings indicate to wine producers the potential of these new wines in the current Australian market and the possibility that increasing future cultivation of these varieties as a response to climate change might lead to a more sustainable wine industry in the future.