From perceptual to conceptual categorization of wines: What is the effect of expertise?

Wine supply in the French market is structured in an intricate system of categories based on origin. There is very little knowledge about consumers understanding of this complex category system and the sensory styles behind these categories. This study investigated how assessors with different level of expertise categorized Beaujolais wines from general to more specific levels of categorization (grape variety, appellation, and "lieu-die') in both perceptual (wines) and conceptual (wine labels) conditions. Based on the literature on expertise, we expected a stronger effect in the perceptual condition, in particular for the most specific levels of categorization. For each wine categorization level, three sets of 12 wines were tasted by three panels of 60 assessors: a panel of unfamiliar novices with no much exposure to Beaujolais wines; a panel of familiar novices with regular exposure to Beaujolais wines; and a panel of experts from the Beaujolais. In both perceptual and conceptual conditions, assessors were asked to perform a binary sorting task, followed by a verbalisation task. Data were analysed using DISTATIS. At each level, with a few exceptions, a clearer separation was observed between the two categories in the conceptual condition than in the perceptual condition. Although the experts categorized the labels by grape variety, they did not spontaneously categorize the wines in that way. Finally, we observed a clear expertise effect only in the conceptual condition. This result will be discussed in terms of expertise acquisition and categorization processes.