South Africa Wine Technical Yearbook 2025

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MARCH

Cultural insights in wine aroma descriptions in South Africa, France and Portugal By Samantha Fairbairn

The centuries-long enjoyment of wine has shaped our national cultural practices and social norms around its consumption. Researchers at Stellenbosch University’s South African Grape and Wine Research Institute (SAGWRI), in collaboration with international partners, recently conducted a study to explore wine aromas from the perspectives of South African, French and Portuguese consumers. This study aims to uncover cultural similarities and differences in how these aromas are conceptualised. Methodology Wine consumers from South Africa (n = 60), France (n = 46), and Portugal (n = 62) completed an online survey. The survey collected socio-demographic data (age, sex, nationality and education) and wine consumption data (frequency and preferences) to ensure that a comparable subset of these populations was used. Participants described

the aromas of wine, white wine and red wine. Text analyses were conducted in the participants’ original languages, with spelling errors corrected and words reduced to their root forms (e.g., ‘berries’ to ‘berry’). Descriptors with the same semantic meaning were grouped (e.g., floral and flowers). The frequency of these words was calculated and organised in tables by concept and country, including only attributes cited by at least 10% of participants from one culture. The relationship between the wine concepts was described using Cosine similarity and Pearson’s correlation. Results and discussion The descriptions elicited are purely cognitive, as no wine samples were evaluated. This methodology allows us to infer the influence of cultural background on consumer perceptions in countries with different winemaking histories without any wine selection biases. The relationship between wine concepts was evaluated using Pearson’s correlation coefficient (Figure 1A). The circles depict the concepts, and the arrows show the relationship between them. A correlation close to one indicates a strong similarity (linear correlation), while a correlation close to zero indicates no similarity (poor correlation). When comparing the three wine concepts, the data suggest that consumers, regardless of country, view red and white wine aromas as two ends of a spectrum (correlations between 0.28 and 0.44), with general

FIGURE 2. The correlation (Pearson’s correlation) between the wine (A), white wine (B), and red wine concepts (C), as described by consumers from South Africa (SA), France (FR), and Portugal (PT). FIGURE 1. The correlation (Pearson’s correlation coefficient) between wine (shades of blue), white wine (shades of gold), and red wine (shades of red) concepts among South African (A), French (B), and Portuguese (C) consumers.

Portugal

France

South Africa

Wine

0.74

0.69

0.81

0.65

0.69

0.75

correlation

White wine

Red wine

White wine

Red wine

White wine

Red wine

0.44

0.31

0.28

Wine

Red wine

White wine

Red wine

White wine

0.79

0.77

0.86

0.79

0.75

0.77

0.86

0.75

0.37

0.57

0.37

0.57

correlation

0.52

0.83

0.79

0.52

0.83

0.79

TECHNICAL YEARBOOK 2025

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