Identification of alcoholic beverages by coupling Gas Chromatography and electronic nose

The high ethanol concentration of alcoholic beverages complicates very significantly the detection of aroma compounds with electronic nose, A new desalcoholization technique using Gas Chromatography (GC) is proposed for the pretreatment of samples before injection in the electronic nose, A semi-dynamic head-space at controlled temperature was used for pretreatment of samples and to standardize aroma composition. Dehydration and desalcoholization were conducted to 100%. In this work, different alcoholized beverages (tequilas, whiskies, vodkas and red wines) were analyzed. Four molecules responsible of off-flavors in red wine were detected with the electronic nose. Discrimination between alcoholized beverages was possible using principal component analysis. Wines originated from different French regions could be identified and among them, discrimination between control and off flavored wines was possible.