Investigating Fruitiness Perception in Red and White wines
This report details activities that occurred from August 2017 to January 2017. Several accomplishments were achieved during these first 6 months. We successful made wine, Pinot noir and Pinot gris, that contained no aroma compounds. This was achieved by altering some winemaking productions and an addition of resin that specifically absorbs aroma compounds. There is enough wine to serve as our base wine for the entirety of the study. Fruit standards for red wines were developed and used for three sensory panels that investigated fruitiness in red wine. After 3 training sessions panelists were found to be consistent with their standard evaluations. The first sensory panel validated previous research focused on the impact of β-damascenone, lactones, furaneols and red and black-berry associated esters to fruitiness in red wine. Our results for furaneols and β-dsamscenone do agree with previous work. The 2nd and 3rd sensory panels investigated the same compounds as the 1st sensory panel but at different concentrations and combinations. We have found that when norisoprenoids, β-damascenone and β-ionone, are at low concentrations and when furaneol compounds are at high concentrations, there is an impact to perception of red fruit aromas. However this only occurs if all other compounds are at lower concentrations. Once these compounds are in combination with higher concentrations of other compounds, the tested esters and lactones, there is a shift from red fruit aromas to dark fruit aromas. As we anticipated dark fruit aromas appear to be due to a combination of many compounds, with no one compound class dominating over another. We still have 1 more sensory panel to conduct to complete the investigation into the impact of norisoprenoids, furaneols, lactones and red and black berry associated esters on fruity aroma perception. It is our intent to begin focusing on the effect of acetate esters and volatile fatty acids to fruity perception of red wine. We also are prepared to begin investigating fruitiness in white wine, focusing on terpenes and esters.
