Sensory profiling of South Korean grape wines: a comparison of fast profiling methods and evaluation environments

The South Korean wine market has rapidly expanded in recent years; however, the sensory characteristics of domestically produced red wines remain largely unexplored. This study aims to profile the sensory attributes of South Korean red wines and compare the performance of two rapid profiling methods - check-all-that-apply (CATA) and flash profiling (FP) - with conventional generic descriptive analysis (GDA). We also investigate the influence of different evaluation environments. Five experiments were conducted: GDA (n = 10), controlled laboratory tests (CLTs: CATA n = 52, FP n = 20), and home-use tests (HUTs: CATA n = 52, FP n = 21).

Five types of Korean red wines made from Korean wild grape, Muscat Bailey A grape, or Campbell Early grape varieties were evaluated. The GDA generated 31 sensory terms, 26 of which significantly differentiated the wines. CATA identified 31 and 24 significant attributes for the CLT and HUT, respectively, among 63 terms. FP derived 40 representative attributes in the CLT and 37 in the HUT.

Overall, the CLT conditions produced more consistent sensory discrimination than the HUT conditions when compared with the GDA results. Both CATA and FP effectively distinguished between wine samples, but FP was less efficient in identifying key sensory attributes. Moreover, FP required greater researcher involvement and participant effort compared to CATA. In contrast, CATA profiling - both in CLT and HUT - proved more time-efficient and generated results highly compatible with GDA, particularly when the sensory descriptors of the target products were well established in prior research. © 2026 The Author(s). Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Society of Chemical Industry.