Oxidized Burgundy Chardonnay wines: sensory space boundaries, and identification of volatile target compounds
Abstract
Burgundy Chardonnay wines have been subject to oxidative degradation for almost ten years now, but the phenomenon particularly concerns young wines. Early oxidation produces untypical aging off-flavors. Better knowledge of the implicated volatile compounds should help conserve young wine aroma. The present article looks at the new insights in term of boundaries and description provided by sensory space analysis. The first phase involved making a selection of wines that are consensually recognized as oxidized and non-oxidized. A small number of selected wines corresponding to the contrasting sensory subsets were analysed by gas chromatography olfactometry (GC-O) and gas chromatography mass spectrometry (GC-MS). Additional experiments examined sought: a) to detect odorant areas specific to oxidized wines; and b) to identify and quantify the volatile compounds related to the aroma produced by oxidative degradation.