Monitoring of evolution during red wine aging in oak barrels and alternative method by means of an electronic panel test

Abstract

A combination of the data obtained by means of an e-nose (based on resistive MOX sensors), an e-tongue (based on voltammetric sensors) and an e-eye (based on CIE Lab coordinates) has been used to monitor the aging of a red wine. The changes in the chemical composition of wines that occur during maturing have permitted the system to discriminate among wine samples collected after one, three, six and ten months of aging. The discrimination capability of the electronic panel test obtained by means of Principal Component Analysis (PCA), Partial Least Squares Discriminant Analysis (PLS-DA) is even higher than the discrimination achieved by means of traditional chemical analysis.

After ten months of aging it has been possible to discriminate between the wine aged in a French oak barrel and the same wine soaked with oak chips of the same origin and toasting level and treated with microoxygenation.