About Us
Sue Langstaff began her career as a Sensory Scientist working with beer. In 1990 she conducted sensory profiling of stouts for a book written by Dr. Michael Lewis and helped a boutique brewery in Berkeley develop a descriptive analysis panel. Later, she branched out into wine, becoming a part-time instructor at Napa Valley College where she taught Sensory Evaluation of Wine, Advanced Sensory Evaluation of Wine, Laboratory Analysis of Wines and Musts, Introduction to North Coast Wines, and Wines of the World. She did this for 10 years until she began working full-time for the analytical wine laboratory, Vinquiry.
While at Vinquiry, Sue set-up and maintained an analytical sensory evaluation program, including the development of:
· Facilities/resources
· A pool of trained panelists
· Appropriate experimental protocols and data analysis methods
· Efficient record storage/archiving procedures
She also provided consultation to, and liaison with, other groups within Vinquiry regarding sensory evaluation and its application to wine flavor projects.
Additionally, Sue has been:
- An expert facilitator for a tequila lawsuit which involved setting up triangle tests for a panel of tequila experts. She has also conducted sensory testing for numerous lawsuits involving wine.
- A consultant to numerous insurance companies, assisting in claims resolution through the assessment of potentially defective wines.
- A wine judge for the Napa Valley Expo and a professional judge at the Great American Beer Festival. She has taught Sensory Evaluation of Beer for the Professional Brewers Certificate Program at U.C. Davis.
- The chairman of the Sensory Evaluation Committee for the California Enological Research Association.
- Participant and sensory advisor in several formal olive oil tasting panels.
Sue earned her A.B. degree in Genetics from U.C. Berkeley and her M.S. in Food Science from U.C. Davis specializing in Sensory Science. Her thesis work was on the sensory and instrumental evaluation of the mouthfeel of beer and the results were published in the Journal of the American Society of Brewing Chemists and the Journal of the Institute of Brewing. While at U.C. Davis, Sue was a teaching assistant for the class Sensory Evaluation of Wines taught by Ann Noble.
Sue is currently a member of the American Society of Viticulture and Enology and is the inventor of The Defects Wheel®. She lives near the Napa Valley with her husband and cat, Maggie.