Lexicon and types of discourse in wine expertise: The case of vin de garde

This work aimed to study the verbal generations of four groups with different types of wine expertise: professionals, connoisseurs, consumers, and trained panelists. Participants performed an association task and a definition task with the vin de garde concept. Lexical resources and types of discourse were analyzed. Wine professionals and trained panelists used descriptive terms while connoisseurs and consumers used words referring to time, cellaring and to subjective judgments. Panelists and consumers produced experiential discourse and were uncertain in their knowledge regarding the vin de garde concept. Wine professionals and connoisseurs were confident in their knowledge, and their discourse explicitly relied both on collectively shared knowledge and individual experiences. Moreover, connoisseurs produced an objective discourse oriented toward wine. A linguistic analysis accounts for expertise as reflected in verbal generations. This work underlines the multidimensional nature of expertise that relies on various skills regarding wine.

► Verbal expertise related to wine includes a specific lexicon and a type of discourse with both normative and experiential aspects.
► Connoisseurs have a type of discourse close to that of professionals, but a lexicon more similar to that of consumers.
► Trained panelists have a type of discourse close to consumers, but they have acquired a specific descriptive lexicon.
► Domain-specific expertise involves several skills that can be independently acquired.