Multivariate discrimination of wines with respect to their grape varieties and vintages

Abstract

The primary focus of the European Union funded project entitled “Establishing a WINE Data Bank for analytical parameters for wines from Third Countries” (WINE-DB project, G6RD-CT-2001-00646-WINE-DB) was the discrimination of wine samples with respect to their geographical origin using only a few chemical parameters. Taking a step further, we have investigated the possibility of discriminating the wines in the data bank according to their harvesting seasons and grape varieties. Several chemometric methods were carefully selected and evaluated for this purpose. These were discriminant partial least squares, classification and regression trees, uninformative variable elimination discriminant partial least squares and neuro-fuzzy systems. With classification and regression trees, it was possible to identify a few chemical parameters including isotopic ratios (e.g. δ18O), biogenic amines and rare earth elements that discriminate between vintages and some grape varieties for wines produced in a particular country such as Czech Republic, Hungary, Romania or South Africa. These parameters can be used in evaluating the authenticity of wines.