Anais do Simpósio Latino Americano de Ciências de Alimentos
Proceedings of 14 SLACA - Latin American Symposium on Food Science

Odor-active compounds contribute to wine quality and volatile compounds play an important role in the perception of these compounds. Gas chromatography coupled to mass spectrometry (GC/MS) is widely used in the evaluation of wine volatile profile. When gas chromatography is combined with olfactometry (GC-O) using the human nose as detector, data on odor-active compounds are obtained, allowing understanding the influence of these volatiles on a specific wine. However, wine is a complex matrix encompassing different compounds, which can result in coelutions when one-dimensional (1D-GC) is used. Comprehensive two-dimensional gas chromatography with mass spectrometry detection (GCxGC/MS) has allowed improvements in knowledge of wine. Merlot wines are among the most produced worldwide and the objective of this study was to identify the odor-active compounds of Merlot wine produced in Campanha Gaúcha region through the combination of GC-O Osme and GCxGC/MS. GCxGC/MS revealed the presence of 142 volatiles, including alcohols (34), esters (33), terpenes (26), acids (16), aldehydes (7), sulfur compounds (6), ketones (5), phenols (5), furan (4), lactones (4) and C13-norisoprenoids (2). GC-O allowed identifying of 24 odor-active compounds and GCxGC/MS indicated additional 14 odor-active compounds, which were found as coelutions. The role of the GCxGC/MS in elucidating compounds with distinct odor descriptions given by assessors during compound elution in GC-O was also verified. Among the coeluting compounds, hexanoic acid and geranyl acetone were separated using GCxGC/MS and the unpleasant and pungent odor mentioned in GC-O analysis was recognized to be related to the acid, while the floral odor of geranyl acetone has not been assigned. The use of GC-O-FID/MS procedure associated with GCxGC/MS provided a more in-depth evaluation of volatiles of a Merlot wine from Campanha Gaúcha.