The notion of typicality – as referred to the type of vine that was used or to the location of the vine – was often studied for wines. Unique sensory characteristics are balanced with a large variability due to differences in producers ‘know-how’ and to seasonal variations (vintages). To assess typicality, one of the recurrent questions is about the use of an expert panel or not. It was reported that experts do not exhibit more sensitivity but they know better to put words on sensations than customers (Bende & Nordin, 1997).
Sensory analysis could be performed for different purposes. For example, Ballester (2004) used it for different steps of his study concerning the typicality of white wines from Chardonnay. White wines from different grapes were presented to a panel of experts and all the Chardonnay wines were recognized as typical of Chardonnay but some wines from other grapes were put in the same category. Then the wines were tested by two different ways: orthonasal and global (orthonasal, retronasal and mouthfeel perceptions). Only the Chardonnay wines were always put in the same category indicating that the typicality of Chardonnay is mainly based on olfactory parameters.