The touch of wine: the first portable tool designed to appreciate the texture of a wine!

"The Touch of Wine: the first portable tool designed to appreciate the texture of a wine!" is a revolutionary set by Cyrille Tota from L'étoffe des Terroirs. This one-of-a-kind tool offers you the keys to understanding and appreciating the texture of wines like never before. Recommended by Franck Thomas, voted best sommelier in Europe, this "Touch of Wine" is an essential tool for all wine enthusiasts and professionals looking to enrich their tasting experience.

The "Touch of Wine" tool is:

• portable, practical, and easily transportable,
• designed to easily express the texture of the wine,
• suitable for beginners as well as experienced tasters,
• allowing for the taster’s skill development,
• facilitating the expression and sharing of mouthfeel,
• validated through an experimental process,
• fun and accessible to everyone!

Thanks to it, you will finally be able to express yourself with ease, simplicity, and accuracy about the texture of all wines! By touching the fabrics while tasting wines, alone or with friends, in a playful and friendly manner, you will forget your complexes and feel comfortable to share your tactile sensations in the mouth.

We conducted a scientific study in 2018* which validates this tool, deemed useful by more than 80% of users.

*Study conducted following an initial university work ("Polysensory Study of Wine"; University of Burgundy and Montpellier 2; 2013) with a panel of 40 tasters, demonstrating a significant correlation between fabric choice, wine appreciation, and word choice to describe the wine...

THE "HAND TOUCH" THEREFORE HELPS IN UNDERSTANDING AND VERBALIZING THE "MOUTHFEEL". Daily use of the tool will give you access to the texture of great wines, for your greatest pleasure, and you will share this unique experience during "Haute Couture" tastings that will then take on another emotional dimension...

How to use this tool?

1) Tactilely discover each fabric, touching them using the following 3 dimensions:

– Surface modality: flat palm with back-and-forth movements.

– Finger grip modality: back-and-forth movements between the fingers.

– Hand grip modality: the fabrics can be fully manipulated with the hands**.

2) Put the wine in your mouth WITHOUT smelling it**. Continue to simultaneously manipulate the fabrics. It is important to take the time to associate the tactile sensations perceived in the mouth with those perceived with the hands.

3) Choose a fabric from the set to characterize the texture of the wine tasted. If you hesitate between 2 and think both could work, you can select both fabrics**.

4) Associate the corresponding adjectives to your choice from the list of 18 words selected to verbalize your feeling**.

5) Share with your friends your feelings and personal choices for each wine tasted**.

** Very detailed technical and practical explanations for each step are provided in the accompanying educational booklet. We advise you to read them very carefully before starting to use the tool.

Contents 8 fabrics: Natural silk, tulle, burlap, velvet, taffeta, felt, denim, satin

Definition of texture & touch vocabulary

What is texture in tasting?

This is the equivalent of touch. It encompasses all the tactile sensations perceived by the mucous membranes of the mouth: silky, velvety, slimy, fatty, astringent, pasty, etc. Therefore, it is a component of taste quality.

18 descriptors have been selected, partly because they can be used to describe the texture of both a wine and a fabric, and partly because they are the most frequently used to describe the texture of a wine by touching a material, according to the poly-sensory study of wine conducted in 2013*.

– Here is the list of adjectives:
Soft, Silky, Satin, Velvety, Granular, Gritty, Rough
Supple, Flowing (supple, pleasant), Tight, Tense, Stiff
Tender, Firm, Hard
Fluid, Dense, Thick

This list is, of course, not exhaustive, but it will give the user a sufficient vocabulary base to make the best use of the tool and verbalize their tactile sensations.

When using the tool for the first time with friends, do not tell them the name of the fabrics:
Use "fabric number 1, number 2..." to refer to the fabrics. By doing so, they will find it easier to verbalize their feelings, without intellectualizing...
It is only after having experimented with several wines that the fabrics will be identified.