Dresden 2011 – scientific programme

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SYCH: Intersectional Symposium Cultural Heritage in the Light of Physical Methods

SYCH 2: Cultural Heritage in the Light of Physical Methods II

SYCH 2.3: Invited Talk

Thursday, March 17, 2011, 17:30–18:00, HSZ 02

Metabolic tools to study wine body — •Oliver Fiehn, Kirsten Skogerson, and Gert Wohlgemuth — UC Davis, Genome Center, U.S.A.

Are wine tasting panels really objective? Can physical measurements mimic human reception of wines? Our senses perceive a wide variety of compounds, from volatiles (odor) to polyphenolics (tannins), acids, and numerous other metabolites. Quantitative analysis of 'all compounds', called metabolomics, might therefore replace or complement human wine tasters. However, no single technical platform can analyze all metabolites present in a biological sample. When several platforms are combined, 500-3,000 metabolites can be assessed per biological study using chromatography (GC, LC) coupled to mass spectrometry (TOF, ion trap, QTOF, FT-ICR MS) in combination with standardized spectral libraries and databases.

An exemplary study is presented for predicting wine body of 20 white wines, using the results of categorization of mouthfeel viscosity from trained wine panelists. By applying metabolomic results and multivariate statistics, mouthfeel viscosity was predicted at 80% confidence. Interestingly, the human sensation of wine body is not perceived by compounds that might otherwise be accounted for 'high viscosity' (such as sugar alcohols, glycerol or lactate) but amino acids. We also confirmed that no single biomarker could accurately predict wine body, whereas a panel of few compounds was found to be pretty close to the average scores of the wine tasting panel.