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QDA

Abbreviation for "Quantitative Descriptive Analysis", a basic methodology for analytical food sensory testing. A descriptive sensory analysis aims to identify and quantify sensory product characteristics by means of objective description of human perception and to reveal relationships between the chemical-physical components of a product and the sensory characteristics of this product by trained persons. The intensity of certain properties or characteristics is measured using an intensity scale. Such a quantitative descriptive analysis, which is also called profile analysis or profile testing, also makes it possible to graphically display the differences between several products for defined properties.

Besides QDA, there are also other difference tests. These are the triangle test (out of three products, two are identical, the deviating one must be recognised), the ranking test (differences with regard to a characteristic such as sweetness), as well as tests with regard to the perception threshold (perception/recognition of a certain substance). QDA is also increasingly used in wine tastings - especially when it comes to comparisons between several wines with regard to defined properties or characteristics. This is to avoid the problem of rating discrepancies that often occurs in sensory tests and evaluations of wines with several tasters involved. The main reasons for these often glaring differences are, apart from different professions or experience of the wine tasters, different ideas of quality (how is quality measured, what is the quality standard), too little precise or clearly standardised terms in wine evaluation and wine address (how should what be described) or unspecific questions (which criteria or characteristics should be evaluated and how).

QDA - Netz mit Rotwein und Weißwein Bewertung

When tasting wines, for example, the characteristics can be acidity, residual sugar, astringency and the persistence in the taste(finish), as well as certain aromas (apple, tobacco, vanilla, lemon, etc.) in the smell. The results of the profile analyses are usually presented graphically in the form of polar diagrams (spider plots). Each characteristic is shown starting from the centre in the form of an axis (line) running outwards. The more intense the feature, the longer the axis. If you connect the intensity endpoints of all parameters of a wine, you get its aroma diagram. Assuming five characteristics with identical intensity and thus axes of equal length would result in a pentagon. In reality, however, the characteristics have different intensities, resulting in an uneven, spider-web-like picture. In the graphic, a fictitious example of an evaluation with a red wine and a white wine with five characteristics.

Graphic: By Norbert Franz-Josef Tischelmaye

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Egon Mark

For me, Lexicon from wein.plus is the most comprehensive and best source of information about wine currently available.

Egon Mark
Diplom-Sommelier, Weinakademiker und Weinberater, Volders (Österreich)

The world's largest Lexicon of wine terms.

26,379 Keywords · 46,984 Synonyms · 5,323 Translations · 31,713 Pronunciations · 202,114 Cross-references
made with by our author Norbert F. J. Tischelmayer. About the Lexicon

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