# Influence of Region on Sensory and Chemical Profiles of Pennsylvania Gruner Veltliner Wines
## 2 Materials and Methods
### Descriptive Analysis  
Descriptive analysis protocol was evaluated by The Pennsylvania State University Institutional Review Board (protocol #STUDY00008551) and found to be exempt under category 6 (Taste and Food Quality Evaluation). A panel of 8 participants (4 females; ages 24-60) was trained to evaluate Year 1 wines three months after bottling. In the second year, the panel consisted of 9 individuals (6 females; ages 32-60), 6 of whom were on the previous year's panel. Participants were selected based on previous alcoholic beverage panel experience conducted at the Sensory Evaluation Center (SEC) at The Pennsylvania State University. In Year 1, panelists were trained for 14 h over a 4-week period on orthonasal aroma, flavor (in-mouth aroma), taste, and mouthfeel attributes found in the wines using generic descriptive analysis (DA) [23]. Panelists generated terms and agreed upon corresponding physical and verbal references (Table 1) for each attribute in the training sessions. Attribute terms were generated by blindly exposing the panelists to the different wines, with each wine replicate presented at least once during training. The panel developed a list of two appearance, 15 orthonasal aroma, 5 taste, three mouthfeel, and 15 in-mouth flavor attributes (Table 1). Three of the attributes (citrus aroma/flavor, other fruit aroma/flavor, and sour taste) used two reference standards to describe the term. After the attribute list was generated, panelists were trained on attribute rating and scaling. Intensities of each attribute were rated on line scales that had anchor terms on both ends. While wine and other beverage samples can be evaluated in black glasses to eliminate physical evaluation, visual differences among samples were frequently discussed in panel training, and so two appearance attributes were included in evaluation. Appearance attributes (yellow color and haziness) were anchored with the terms \"No (yellow/haze)\" at the left end of the scale to \"Very (yellow/hazy)\" at the right end. Aroma, taste, mouthfeel, and flavor attributes were anchored with \"None\" at the left end of the scale to \"A lot\" at the right end. Blind duplicate samples were used to evaluate panel performance and rating agreement. Panelists were considered trained when they could rate blind duplicate samples and find no significant differences (\(p<0.05\)) between them using analysis of variance (ANOVA). Fourteen of the 18 wire samples (=9 sites \(\times\) 2 fermentation replicates) were evaluated in sensory triplicate, while four samples were evaluated in sensory duplicate due to low sample volume. Panelists evaluated samples in 7 sessions over a period of three weeks. Evaluation was conducted in individual booths in the SEC under white light and positive pressure and results were collected using Compusense Cloud software (Academic Consortium, Guelph, ON, Canada). Panelists were presented with 30 mL of each sample at room temperature in clear ISO certified tasting glasses covered with clear plastic Petri dishes. Each panelist evaluated 6 samples per session that were labeled with randomized three-digit blinding codes and presented in a modified Williams Latin square block design. Panelists were prompted to cleanse their palate with water and unsalted crackers (Mondelez Global LLC, East Hanover, NJ, USA) during a forced 60 s break between samples. One panelist missed two evaluation sessions, and the missing values were imputed using the panelist's mean replicate values. In the second year, the panelists were trained for 19 h on the same reference standards used in the Year 1 DA. The panel was given the option to add references to this list; after being presented with all replicates of Year 2 wines, the panel determined additional references were not needed. Panelists were deemed trained when they evaluated blind