Blind Champagne Tasting

The article relating to this dataset was published in the journal Flavour 2013, 2:25 doi:10.1186/2044-7248-2-25

Participants

Fifteen participants gave their informed consent prior to taking part in the tasting. Their median age was 30 years (ranging from 21 to over 60) and 11 were male. The studies have been approved by the Central University Research Ethics Committee of the University of Oxford and are therefore in compliance with the Helsinki Declaration. The whole sample had been involved in professional activities related to wine or spirits. To assess Champagne expertise, in particular, the participants were given the following questions: ‘How would you rate your experience with Champagne? Novice, intermediate, or expert’ and ‘Is your professional activity related to Champagne? Yes, no, please specify’. We chose to avoid mixing kinds of expertise because perceptions of wine are known to differ among different kinds of experts. For instance, experts included critics but importantly did not include any wine-makers or sommeliers. As such, there were four expert Champagne tasters who included wine merchants, well-known Champagne critics/journalists/writers specializing in champagne, and trade ambassadors for a Champagne house. There were six intermediate Champagne tasters, which included wine and spirit trade retailers, writers/journalists for food and wine columns, and sales representatives for Champagne houses. Finally, there were five self-assessed novice Champagne tasters, who included wine brand owners, people who worked for a Champagne house, wine trade, and spirit ambassadors who generally drank Champagne monthly.

Stimuli

The seven sparkling wines used in the present study consisted of six Champagnes: Mumm de Verzenay, Mumm Rosé, Mumm Vintage 2004, Perrier-Jouët Blason Rosé, Perrier-Jouët Belle Epoque 2004, Perrier-Jouët Belle Epoque Blanc de Blancs 2002, and a Ridgeview Bloomsbury Non-Vintage Sparkling wine from Sussex (UK) - the only sparkling wine not made in Champagne but made of the same grape varieties and using the same method. These wines were chosen to provide a range from 0 to 100% Chardonnay grapes.