Mouth-feel Wheel
concept / concept-wine-mouthfeel-wheel
ワインの口中感用語（マウスフィールホイール） / Mouth-feel Wheel (red wine)
Mouth-feel Wheel is a hierarchical vocabulary for describing red-wine mouthfeel. Based on sorting exercises by experienced wine tasters and winemakers, it organizes mouthfeel terms around astringency.
On this page (5 sections)
Reading the bitterness
A paper developing a vocabulary for red-wine mouthfeel treats mouth sensations as an interplay of 『acidity, sweetness, bitterness, retronasal aroma perception (flavour), viscosity, warmth, and astringency』. The terms on the outer ring of the actual wheel (Figure 2), however, do not include a separate 「苦味」 (in translation: "bitterness") entry; bitterness appears only in definitions of terms derived from astringency. The vocabulary was developed to organize astringency rather than bitterness itself.
One term involving bitterness, "hard", is defined as 『Combined effect of bitterness and astringency.』, with "harsh" as a synonym. Another, "sappy", is defined as 『Astringency with high acid and slightly bitter.』 and likened to the astringency felt when chewing a green grape stalk.
In a table classifying astringency terms, the "harsh" group is described as 『A negative hedonic grouping suggesting aspects of excessive unbalanced astringency, excessive roughness and/or bitterness.』.
Sources for this overview
A 'Mouth-feel Wheel': terminology for communicating the mouth-feel characteristics of red wine
Checked for this overview: Used the placement of bitterness as something other than an independent wheel entry. / Used verbatim the definition of hard. / Used verbatim the definition of sappy. / Used verbatim the description of the harsh group.
Structured claims — open a section to read each claim's confidence, evidence and limits
Sensory (4)
Scope: Gawel, Oberholster & Francis (2000), Introduction and Figure 2
Note: The paper states explicitly that the wheel is intended to organize mouth-feel vocabulary centered on astringency, not bitterness itself (Abstract; Keywords: astringency, mouth-feel).
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concept-wine-mouthfeel-wheel —differs_from→ ""'In mouth' sensory properties of red wines, encompass multiple and interacting sensations of acidity, sweetness, bitterness, retronasal aroma perception (flavour), viscosity, warmth, and astringency." The body text frames it this way, but the wheel itself as developed (Figure 2) has no independent term "bitter" among its outer terms — bitterness appears only within the definitions of "hard" and "sappy," both derivatives of astringency."Scope: Gawel, Oberholster & Francis (2000) Table 1『Supplementary definitions for astringency terms』
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concept-wine-mouthfeel-wheel —is_defined_as→ "『hard: Combined effect of bitterness and astringency. Synonym 'harsh'.』."Scope: Table 1 of the same paper.
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concept-wine-mouthfeel-wheel —is_defined_as→ "『sappy: Astringency with high acid and slightly bitter. Reminiscent of the astringency elicited by chewing on a green grape stalk.』."Scope: Table 2 of the same paper, 『Title and description of the groupings of astringency terms』.
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concept-wine-mouthfeel-wheel —is_documented_as_having→ "『harsh: A negative hedonic grouping suggesting aspects of excessive unbalanced astringency, excessive roughness and/or bitterness.』."