The multi-element determination and regional discrimination of Australian wines

Concentrations were determined for 56 elements in 1397 samples of Australian wine, using solution based inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry and emission spectroscopy. Interpretation of the data indicated that, within red and within white wines, the vintage and grape variety had little effect on the multi-element composition of the wine, although significant differences were observed between red and white wines. Wine growing regions from within different Australian states were generally easily discriminated using linear discriminant analysis, and good discrimination was typically observed between regions from within the same state. However, the close proximity of several regions within South Australia led to some difficulties when trying to discriminate between wines from these regions. This research has demonstrated the possibility of using the elemental composition of Australian wines to discriminate between wines grown in different regions and the potential of using this technique for accurate provenance establishment. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.