Application of FT-MIR spectrometry in wine analysis

By means of liquid Fourier transform-middle infrared spectrometry, it is possible to analyse wine and must within 90 s simultaneously on a significant number of important parameters like alcohol, relative density, extract, sugar-free extract, refraction, conductivity, glycerol, total phenols, reducing sugar, fructose, glucose, sucrose, total acid, pH value, volatile acid, total SO2 and tartaric acid, malic acid, lactic acid and citric acid. Within a short time, it is possible to obtain information on the chemical composition of the product and it is useful to monitor the changes in chemical composition from beginning of grape ripening, must and fermentation to finished wines. Additionally, it is possible to obtain a fingerprint of the products which can serve as an identity check for quality management and production control. In the first part, a sample set with 327 typical German wines from 1989 to 2001 were analysed using Fourier transform-middle infrared spectrometry (FT-MIR) and also with different reference methods. In the second part, the results of a Ring test with 52 typical wines from each of 13 German wine regions are discussed. The results from this study demonstrated that a calibration model could be transferred between FT-MIR machines with the same hardware. The inter-laboratory reproducibility proved to be satisfactory and the instrument results were comparable with those obtained by the classical reference methods. (C) 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.