Patterns of sweetness in red wine according to consumer characterization

The preference for sweet taste in red wine was examined according to consumer categories of age, gender, drinking experience and personality type (Big-5 personality-test). A total of 114 subjects revealed their preferences for sweetness after tasting dry red wine spiked with equal concentrations of glucose and fructose at 2 g/ L, 4 g/L, 8 g/L, 16 g/L and 32 g/L, following an ascending forced choice paired comparison method (2-AFC). The overall preference for sweetness was shown within the range of 4.8 to 21.9 g/L, with maximal liking at 8 g/L. Three patterns of response to sweetness were observed (sweet dislikers, sweet likers and indifferent to sweet) according to the different categories of consumers. Differences (p > 0.05) were not found in sweetness preference among the categories up to 16 g/L sugar except for the trait extraversion at 8 g/L, where low extraverts showed a higher proportion of responses preferring the sweeter sample. Most significant differences were found only under the highest tasted concentration (32 g/L). Females and novices preferred sweeter samples (p < 0.05) when compared with the response of males and experienced consumers, respectively