A review on astringency and bitterness perception of tannins in wine

• The advance of astringency/bitterness mechanisms and methods was reviewed.
• Tannin structure plays an essential role in wine astringency/bitterness perception.
• Astringency intensity and astringency sub-quality should be distinguished.
• The chemical interpretation for multiple wine textural sensations was revealed.
• The sensorial desirable tannins should account for bitterness taste.

Research on wine phenolics has attracted great interest over past decades. Although plenty of literature have explored its contribution to nutrition and color, our knowledge about astringency and bitterness perception induced by wine phenolics remains limited and turns to be an extensive research topic in recent years. The present review provides an overview of latest advances in mechanisms for astringency and bitterness, summarizes relative analysis methods, describes tannin perception quality and outlines the non-tannin factors. The aim of the present paper is to offer a chemical interpretation on tannin perception quality in wine. Current developments and further trends are discussed.