Development of a methodology to study typicity of PDO wines with professionals of the wine sector.

BACKGROUND: Today, many agricultural products claiming a link to their origin and a typicity, receive a warm welcome on the market. Nevertheless, the notion of typicity is blured for consumers and need to be objectified for communication purpose. This study aims at formalizing a methodology for studying typicity of terroirs, with wine PDO example, by a participatory approach with professionals of the wine sector from terroirs, using Focus Group and tasting. The vision of terroirs' typicity by professionals outside of these terroirs has been studied by a Free Word Association Task. RESULTS: This study allowed to distinguish clearly the typicity of the studied terroirs. Professionals from terroirs identified the global conceptual typicity of their terroirs by using different factors, mainly soil, geography, and grape variety whereas professionals outside terroirs expressed their visions of terroirs by reputation or sensory characteristics of wines. Tasting results showed a discrimination of wines based on their typicity and highlighted descriptors involved in sensory perceptual typicity for each studied terroir. CONCLUSION: Professionals from terroirs share a common vision of their typicity and identify more typicity factors than professional outside terroirs. Sensory typicity has been highlighted for five of the six terroirs studied, according to the different descriptors. The study of two populations, from and outside terroirs, shows the gap between the typicities identified by professionals from terroirs and those perceived by professionals outside terroirs. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.