The definition of the term "organoleptic quality" in sensory evaluation of food products does not seem to be consensual. Descriptive or liking methods are generally used to differentiate between wines. Nevertheless, quality evaluation of a product such as wine is defined as an integrated impression, like acceptability, pleasure, aesthetic or emotional experiences during tasting. According to the 'modality appropriateness' hypothesis which predicts that wine tasters weigh the most suitable sensory inputs for a specific assessment, the nature of the quality dimensions may modulate sensory influences. The aim of the present study was to evaluate whether the dominant senses during wine assessment depend on the wine quality dimension being evaluated: emotional and aesthetic approaches, assessment of the exemplarity to a PDO, or liking. Expert wine tasters assessed these questions on twenty wines repeatedly, under different tasting conditions: global (all senses), unimodal (visual, smell and taste), and combined senses (visual/smell, visual/in-mouth sensations and olfaction/in-mouth sensations). Psychometric index and regression models suggested a dominance of smell in emotional, and aesthetic assessments, and of visual dominance for exemplarity decisions. Liking is a more plural composite model of wine assessment. As these different dimensions do not share the same multisensory integration processes, quality assessments require a more holistic and multidimensional approach.Read less <