Natural corks have long been used as wine closures. However,
they are associated with causing multiple adverse effects to the wine they
are attempting to preserve. Alternative closures such as synthetic corks
and screw caps were developed in order to reduce and/or eliminate these
problems. However, the major cause of concern regarding these closures
is of consumers' acceptance. The effect of how three types of closures
(Natural Cork, Synthetic Cork and Screw Cap) affected wine consumers'
perceptions of the quality of wine was examined in this study. This project
was divided into two experiments. The first experiment determined if
frequent wine consumers could detect sensorial differences between the
three closure types. The second experiment ascertained if and how
regular wine consumers' perceptions were altered based on the type of
closure with which the wine samples were bottled. It was determined that
the wine consumers could not significantly detect a difference between any
of the three closure type samples based only on sensory stimuli. The
results from the second experiment found for the Chardonnay samples, the
knowledge that the wine samples came from a natural cork or a synthetic
cork did not significantly affect the liking, quality or purchase intent scores.
However, when the panelists knew that the sample was bottled with a
screw cap, they thought it was of lower quality, were less willing to buy a
wine like the sample and they lowered the price they were willing to pay.
For the Merlot samples, knowledge that the sample came from a natural
cork caused the wine consumers to significantly increase both their
opinions of the quality of the wine and the amount they were willing to pay
for the wine. When they knew that the sample was bottled with a screw
cap, they reduced the price they would pay for the wine. / Graduation date: 2005
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ORGSU/oai:ir.library.oregonstate.edu:1957/26452 |
| Date | 12 August 2004 |
| Creators | Jorgensen, Emily M. |
| Contributors | Marin, Anna B. |
| Source Sets | Oregon State University |
| Language | en_US |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis/Dissertation |
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