Kendal Koorenny, Annegret Cantu, and Hildegarde Heymann*
*UC Davis, 595 Hilgard Lane, Davis, CA, 95616 (hheymann@ucdavis.edu)

We purchased 21 California Petite Sirah wines, all from vintages 2017 to 2020, from Lodi, Paso Robles, Napa Valley, Sonoma County, the Sierra Foothills, Mendocino, and California. Price ranges were high (H): more than $40 per 750 mL bottle (five wines), medium (M): $20 to $40 per bottle (nine wines), and low (L): less than $20 a bottle (seven wines). A trained panel of 10 judges evaluated each wine in triplicate in a balanced randomized order for 29 sensory attributes. All attributes were anchored with reference standards. The data were analyzed using XLSTAT and R-Studio. Nineteen attributes were significantly different across the wines. Most wines were quite similar, with some noted exceptions. These exceptional wines tended to be very high in the attributes barnyard, cooked vegetable, earthy, and smoky. The effect of price was only significant for three attributes: acetone with the L-wines had the lower acetone scores; sweet with the H-wines were perceived as sweeter; and hot with the H- and M-wines were perceived as hotter. The sweet perception was not supported by the glucose and fructose concentrations of the wines, since the L-wines had significantly more of these compounds. It is possible that the perceived sweetness was affected by the floral-fruity aromas in these wines. The hotness results were exactly in line with the alcohol concentrations of the wines, and the acetone perception results were in line with the volatile acidity data. We chose nine wines for a consumer hedonic study and found significant differences in liking, with the wine highest in barnyard odor being by far the least liked. Additionally, the internal preference map showed that the Northern California consumers overwhelmingly rejected wines high in barnyard and earthiness. We conclude that price is not a major driver for the sensory attributes of California Petite Sirah wines.

Funding Support: Ray Rossi Endowed Chair