Markers of typical red wine varieties from the Valley of Tulum (San Juan-Argentina) based on VOCs profile and chemometrics

FABANI, M. PAULA; RAVERA, MARIO; WUNDERLIN, DANIEL A.

Belfast

Conferencia; ASSET 2011, Food Integrity and Traceability Conference; 2011

Queens University

Wine aroma is produced by a complex mixture of volatile organic compounds (VOCs). Some of these VOCs are typical of a wine variety; however, most of them are formed during the fermentation process and wine ageing as well. We studied the VOCs profile of three red wines varieties, produced in the Valley of Tulum, over five consecutive harvests. Our main goal was to verify if different wine varieties could be differentiated from their VOCs profile, disregarding their age, the yeast inoculated and the type of alcoholic fermentation, verifying those compounds that could be used as chemical markers of a particular variety. Stepwise linear discriminant analysis of selected VOCs allowed 86 % differentiation between studied wines, showing that ethyl caprylate was a good marker for Syrah, 1-hexanol for Malbec, and ethyl caproate were characteristic of Bonarda. Thus, these compounds are closely related to grape variety and could be used as good chemical markers of these red wines produced in the Valley of Tulum (San Juan, Argentina), raising question on their use as chemical markers of same wine varieties produced in different regions.