The concept of sensory space was first formulated over 25 years ago and has been widely adopted in oenology for around the last 15 years. It is based on both the common organoleptic characteristics of products and the mental representations built by specific groups of people. Exploring this concept involves first assessing whether it already exists for tasters, and, when this is the case, conducting perceptual evaluations to verify its effectiveness before potentially highlighting the associated sensory properties. The goal of this review, which focuses on applications linked to the field of oenology, is to study how these three steps are carried out, how the corresponding tasks and tests are performed and managed, and the type of results that can be obtained.
Keywords: concept evaluation; descriptive sensory analysis; sensory characterization; sensory space; wine.