Discrimination analysis of wines made from four species of blueberry through their olfactory signatures using an E-nose

Abstract

Blueberries are rich in polyphenols, anthocyanins and vitamins. Products such as fermented beverages are viable, as these fruits have a short shelf life and are difficult to preserve. During the fermentation process, many volatile and phenolic compounds are released, which will define the quality of the product, bringing detectable aromas and flavors. Some product evaluations can be performed through laboratory analyses, which are not always available, are often expensive and time-consuming. Other analyses can be carried out through olfactory evaluation, work carried out by experienced people such as sommeliers. From this perspective, this work presents an initial assessment of the volatile organic compounds (VOCs) of fermented samples of four blueberry varieties over two seasons, using an electronic nose to collect the volatile compounds. Subsequently, six classifiers are then used to evaluate the collected data. The results showed hits of over 99.7% in all cases, indicating the e-nose's ability to differentiate the by-products of different blueberries and to present itself as an auxiliary method to standard laboratory tests in the evaluation of beverages, allowing comparative evaluations.