THE SENSORY EFFECTS OF PREFERMENTATION OR POSTFERMENTATION THERMAL-PROCESSING ON CHARDONNAY AND SEMILLON WINES

Sensory investigations were made on Chardonnay and Semillon wines that had been subjected to pilot-scale heat treatment, protected from air, at approximately 90-degrees-C for several minutes, or storage at 45-d egrees-C for three weeks. Additionally, wines prepared from juices tha t were subjected to the high temperature treatment were evaluated by s ensory methods. The 45-degrees-C treatment was replicated on a laborat ory-scale using wines from a different vintage. Duo-trio difference te sts showed that the 45-degrees-C treatment gave wines that were highly significantly different from the controls. These wines were subjected to sensory descriptive analysis. The results showed that heating decr eased the floral character of the wines and enhanced characters such a s oak, honey, and smoky. These attributes were characteristics of bott le-aged wines that were also analyzed in the study. Heat treatments of juices and wines at 90-degrees-C produced wines which were not genera lly significantly different from their respective controls.