Combination of an electronic nose, an electronic tongue and an electronic eye for the Analysis of Red Wines aged with alternative methods

A combination of an electronic nose, an electronic tongue and an electronic eye has been used to discriminate between red wines aged in oak barrels and red wines matured in steel tanks in contact with oak wood chips. The quality of wines has also been analyzed by means of conventional chemical methods. Principal component analysis has demonstrated that both methods allow discriminating wines according to the type of ageing. Moreover, partial least squares (PLS) has demonstrated that measurements carried out with the electronic system allow establishing prediction models that are capable to infer the methodology used to age wines. Good correlations have been found between the signals obtained with the electronic system and the chemical parameters. The electrochemical signals have been successfully employed to estimate chemical parameters related to the polyphenolic content or the pH such as the tannins content.