Evaluation of elemental profile coupled to chemometrics to assess the geographical origin of Argentinean wines

Traceability of wines requires knowledge of their characteristics, which are associated with the geographical origin of grape, soil, water, climate as well as the winery techniques. The aim of this work was to classify wines and soil from three production areas of Argentina according to multielement data. The influence of the provenance soil on the wine element composition was also investigated. Eleven elements were determined in 31 wine samples and 137 soil samples from regions under study. Stepwise discriminant analysis allows us to correctly classify 100% of the wines analysed under study. regions using only seven parameters (K, Fe, Ca, Cr, Mg, Zn and Mn) and 92% correct classification for soils using seven variables (Ca, Cr, K, Fe, Cu, Zn and, Mg). Canonical analysis between soils and wines datasets affords a correlation coefficient of 0.85 (P-value < 0.001). Thus, almost 85% of variability observed amongst wines could be attributed to the soil in which the vines were cultivated. The analysis of elemental concentrations in the wines and soils, in combination with chemometrics, provides a powerful tool to verify the geographical origin of wines. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.