2 The diagram
First of all we present the diagram that Italian sommeliers use to match a given
food with a wine (see Figure 1). There are two different sets of descriptors,
that sommeliers call characteristics, which are written in the diagram with
different characters.
• Words in normal size, correspond to the food characteristics that we want
to evaluate using a scale of integers from 0 to 10. These are considered
in counterclockwise order and are
– greasiness,
– juiciness,
– sweetness tendency,
– fattiness,
– sapidity/bitterness tendency/acidity tendency/sweetness,
– persistence taste-aroma/spiciness/aromatic.
• Words in capitals, correspond to the wine characteristics that we want
to evaluate, again using a scale of integers from 0 to 10. As above, these
are considered in counterclockwise order, opposite to the circles center,
as follows
– ALCOHOL LEVEL,
– TANNIN CONTENT,
– SAPIDITY/EFFERVESCENCE, ACIDITY,
– AROMA INTENSITY/I.A.P. (Intense Aromatic Persistence)
– SWEETNESS/SOFTNESS