THE PEOPLE
Women in Wine
The sensory science of Dr Wendy Parr NEIL HODGSON When I spoke to Dr Wendy Parr recently, she was enjoying wonderful late autumn weather on the limestone hills above Port Tarakohe in Golden Bay. The recently retired wine scientist lives at this piece of paradise with her husband, ecologist Philip Simpson, who she says has been a huge support and sounding board for her research. “We work incredibly well together and support one another as much as we possibly can. I think that’s the key for both of us being able to contribute to research in such different fields.” Over the past 20 years, Wendy developed a reputation as an outstanding researcher in her specialty area of sensory science and became a key member of a large Sauvignon Blanc multi-disciplinary and multiinstitutional project, established to identify the sensory and chemical components that make New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc unique. Her international wine research journey started when Wendy, who has an initial PhD in psychology, was working in the areas of memory and judgement, becoming increasingly interested in wine and wine tasting. She was intrigued by “what kind of memories do these people have to be able to taste a wine and say ‘chateau such and such from 1964’, or something similar”, and started thinking about the tasting process from a scientific point of view. She wanted to know what mental processes were being triggered, what was going on in the mind of the taster. With Philip, a highly respected botanist with a number of books published (he is considered the authority on tī kōuka, our native cabbage tree), she established a special one-hectare vineyard on these Golden Bay limestone hills in 1999, in a small project to make Chablis-like Chardonnay. At about the time Philip was publishing his first book through Canterbury University Press, Wendy was tiring of being an academic in Wellington, so decided to go to Lincoln University to learn how to be a winemaker and “do a little thesis on what this wine memory is all about”. After the first year of study, the university offered her a scholarship to continue to PhD level in wine science, giving her the opportunity to study, in depth, how people
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Wendy Parr, right, with Dominique Valentin on a tasting trip down the Côte d’O
could remember smells and tastes and what mental processes were taking place when they tasted wines. When I first visited them about 18 years ago, Philip walked me around the vineyard, pointing out the micro-conditions being developed, from a small creek teeming with healthy organic life to the trials they were doing with clones and rootstocks on the tiny block. On a single hectare they had four varieties composed of many clones, using the site to put Philip’s ecology skills into practice and further develop Wendy’s sensory skills. “Having our own tiny research block helped us understand the impact the environment has on the flavours and structures of wine,” she says. Wendy has been part of several important international research teams, and a key question for her has always been, ‘how do people interpret flavour or structural components of wine?’ “This extends to the impact this has on a range of criteria and what we have to do differently as a wine producing nation to alter the subtle characters of a wine, without compromising our base flavour components that express a wine’s personality or identity,” she says. “This is a topical area currently for producers who make Sauvignon Blanc, with a focus on characters that could be easier to sell in emerging markets. “Having our own tiny vineyard let me explore some of these things in a real-world environment at home rather
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than just as an academic.” After communicating with other international sensory scientists, psychologists and wine scientists, in 2001 Wendy received New Zealand Royal Society and INRA (French Research Institute) awards, allowing her to travel to Burgundy, where she and others found they had many ideas in common. They have been collaborating ever since, with Wendy travelling to France each year to spend time at Universities of Burgundy and Paris VIII. As a member of the government-funded Sauvignon Blanc research team, and later the national Pinot Noir research project, she has had the support of dozens of wineries in New Zealand, especially Marlborough, who have sent wines to France, Brazil, Chile, the United Kingdom, and Austria for her to use in her overseas research, teaching, and workshops. “This generous industry support continued throughout my other national and international research projects, including those investigating abstract aspects of wine such as perceived minerality, complexity, and quality.” While some of her science colleagues in France have spent time in New Zealand too, she has also participated in research projects in many parts of the world. “I was invited to talk in many countries including Austria, Chile, Brazil, Canada, China, Australia, and the UK.” Wendy says highlights of her international career include “an invited professorship at