The link between personality and wine preferences

Is there a correspondence between the wines we like and our personality? Following on from previous studies on the relationship between food preferences and consumer personality traits (e.g., Conner et al., 2017, Pfeiler & Eglof, 2018 and Ufer, Lin and Ortega, 2019), this study investigates the link between the personality profiles and socio-demographic characteristics of non-expert wine consumers and their preferences for certain wines. The 1,176 Italian adults who participated were asked to complete an online form giving socio-demographic information. Their personality profile was established by means of the BIG Five Inventory 2 (Soto & John, 2017) and they were asked to specify their favorite wines (open response). The wines listed by the participants (N=406) were described by 4 of the experimenters (two of whom are sommeliers) in terms of a series of variables based on official reviews. These variables, which are considered fundamental to descriptions of the sensory experience of wine at a basic level (i.e. non-expert), concern: Type (e.g. still, sparkling, dessert, liquorous); Color (e.g. white, red, rosé); the Aroma and the degree of Alcohol, Acidity, Sweetness, Body, Tannicity, Sapidity and Persistence (on a 0-3 scale). There were some interesting new correlations with respect to previous findings (e.g. Saliba, Wragg & Richardson, 2009 and Sena-Esteves, Mota, & Malfeito-Ferreira, 2018). For example, it appears that extroverts prefer more acidic wines, sociable people like wines with a more complex bouquet, people with lower emotional stability prefer more flavorful wines and open-minded people favor wines with a persistent flavor.