The role of rheological measurements, thermal analysis and physical properties such as overrun, instrumental hardness and melting behavior on sensorial profile mapping of vanilla ice cream was evaluated. Samples with different functional characteristics were prepared partially substituting sucrose by bulk sweeteners. Creaminess apart from thermal properties (glass transition temperature-T(g), ice crystal uniformity-Delta T(mcurve) and unfrozen water content-UFW) was poorly related with rheological and physical properties. On the contrary, coarseness, wateriness, greasiness and gumminess perception were found to be well correlated with rheological and thermal properties, overrun, air cells mean size and melting rate. Flavor and taste characteristics were interrelated particularly with melting and thermal characteristics, overrun and air cells mean size. Multivariate exploratory statistical methods revealed that the use of T(g), Delta T(mcurve), UFW, instrumental hardness, and melting rate can be used for the effective discrimination of ice creams differing in their sweetener composition suggesting their importance in the design of novel ice cream formulations. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.