The sensory evaluation of 2,4,6-trichloroanisole in wines

Abstract

This work proposes a sensory method to verify the ‘cork taint’ defect in food and beverages. This off-flavour has considerable economic impact in wine but occasionally can occur in other food and beverages. In wine, 2,4,6-trichloroanisole (TCA) is generally considered to be the main compound responsible for this taint. It is an easily recognized compound because of its low sensorial threshold, and it is described as a mouldy and damp cardboard odour. This sensory method, developed in wine, consists of specific panel training to recognize TCA in a series of olfactory tests. The effectiveness of the panel was tested with contaminated wines in which the TCA content had been previously determined by Solid Phase Microextraction-Gas Chromatography Mass Spectrometry (SPME-GC/MS) analysis. This sensory method is useful to train a panel able to recognize the ‘cork taint’ defect in different situations (legal appraisals or quality assurance systems). The use of a reliable sensory assay can reduce the number of chemical analyses and the proposed method can be applied to other beverages such as beer. Copyright © 2015 The Institute of Brewing & Distilling