Abstract Complexity is a term that is often invoked by people when writing appreciatively about the taste, aroma/bouquet, and/or flavour of wine. However, it is not clear what exactly wine complexity refers to. The present study was designed to uncover which attributes are most strongly linked to the social drinker’s perception of complexity in wine. Notably, unlike previous studies of wine complexity, we assessed the temporal component of complexity by acquiring information from participants at the various stages of smelling, tasting, and aftertaste. Furthermore, natural language processing techniques were used to analyse participants’ flavour descriptors in order to assess their semantic associations with complexity. Eight wines, chosen for their ability to showcase various aspects of complexity, were tasted in three flights, grouped by dry white, red, and sweet wines. Participants rated the perceived liking, quality, and complexity of each wine, as well as listing flavours of the wines perceived at different stages (aroma, in-mouth, post-swallowing). The results demonstrated that complexity was positively correlated with liking and with quality, but not with the price of the wines or the number of flavours detected. Furthermore, semantic analysis revealed that participants used more consistent vocabulary to describe wines that they perceived to be more complex. We also observed similar consistency trends for wines that were liked more, as well as wines rated to be lower quality. In general, secondary and tertiary flavours (derived from fermentation or from ageing) were more often used to describe more complex wines. These results reveal intriguing patterns in how social drinkers assess perceive/infer wine complexity, as well as elucidating the relationship between complexity, quality, and liking.

中文翻译：

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葡萄酒的复杂性：一项实证研究

摘要 复杂性是人们在评价葡萄酒的味道、香气/香味和/或风味时经常使用的一个术语。然而，目前尚不清楚葡萄酒的复杂性究竟指的是什么。本研究旨在揭示哪些属性与社交饮酒者对葡萄酒复杂性的看法最密切相关。值得注意的是，与之前对葡萄酒复杂性的研究不同，我们通过从闻、尝和回味各个阶段的参与者那里获取信息来评估复杂性的时间组成部分。此外，使用自然语言处理技术来分析参与者的风味描述符，以评估他们与复杂性的语义关联。八种葡萄酒，因其能够展示复杂性的各个方面而被选中，在三个航班中品尝，分为干白葡萄酒、红葡萄酒和甜葡萄酒。参与者对每种葡萄酒的感知喜好、质量和复杂性进行评分，并列出了在不同阶段（香气、口中、吞咽后）感知到的葡萄酒风味。结果表明，复杂性与喜好和质量呈正相关，但与葡萄酒的价格或检测到的风味数量无关。此外，语义分析显示，参与者使用更一致的词汇来描述他们认为更复杂的葡萄酒。我们还观察到更受欢迎的葡萄酒以及被评为质量较低的葡萄酒的类似一致性趋势。一般来说，二级和三级风味（来自发酵或陈酿）更常用于描述更复杂的葡萄酒。