Temporality of perception during the consumption of French grape brandies with different aging times in relation with aroma compound release

Abstract

Distilled beverages are appreciated by consumers for their aromatic richness and changes during product consumption, but mechanisms still remain unclear. In this context, the objective of the present study was to better understand the origin of temporal perception by a combined approach (dynamic sensory and instrumental) during the consumption of brandies with different aging and known to have different qualities. The five brandies were significantly perceived differently according to sensory profile results. Temporal sensory results showed common perception sequences between products in terms of taste and trigeminal sensations whereas different aromatic sequences were highlighted between products after they were spat out, depending mainly on their aging. Releases over consumption of some aroma compounds specific of brandy flavour were measured in panelist's nose by proton transfer reaction-mass spectrometry. In all cases, similar release patterns were observed, although higher intensities were observed for esters in aged brandies, where they were at higher levels. It is therefore proposed that quantitative differences and not specific release patterns are at the origin of the observed pattern of temporal dominance of sensations. Aroma compounds from wood could also be possible at the origin of aromatic interactions with other perceptions, changing brandy overall perception.

Sensory impact of alternative ageing technology for the production of wine brandies

“…These results are in agreement with those of ANOVA and with other obtained in previous studies (Caldeira et al, 2006;Caldeira et al, 2013;Fiches et al, 2015). They pointed out the ageing time as the most 20 discriminative factor among other factors.…”

“…Consequently, the overall quality of the brandy improves (Caldeira et al, 2002(Caldeira et al, , 2006. Fiches et al (2015) verified that similar perceptions were used to characterize different brandies according to their ageing, supporting the importance of the ageing time.…”

“…As consequence of the ageing process, the sensory profile of the beverage changes and its quality increases. In fact, the final beverage shows a distinct sensory profile compared to the newly distilled spirit (Léauté et al, 1998;Fiches et al, 2015). These sensory changes can be assessed by using the lexicon for the brandies generated in several studies, by applying the conventional descriptive profiling methods (Caldeira et al, 2002;Peña y Lillo et al, 2005;Caldeira et al, 2006;Fiches et al, 2015) or by using rapid descriptive sensory profiling, such as napping (Louw et al, 2013).…”

“…Technological factors such as the kind of wood, the heat treatment of the barrels (Caldeira et al, 2002(Caldeira et al, , 2006(Caldeira et al, , 2010Canas et al, 2011) and the ageing time (Léauté et al, 1998;Caldeira et al, 2002;Caldeira et al, 2006;Fiches et al, 2015) also have a strong impact on it.…”

Modified proton transfer reaction mass spectrometry (PTR‐MS) operating conditions for in vitro and in vivo analysis of wine aroma

“…Using this method, however, discrimination of brandies according to their aging time was achieved . Less drastic conditions (E/ N = 201 Td), but still out of the range commonly implemented, were used for in vivo studies of the dynamic flavor release during consumption of aged brandies . In both cases, however, the identification of diagnostic ions was not straightforward, and the sensitivity of the method was clearly degraded compared with the one achievable with standard conditions.…”