Varietal volatile patterns of Italian white wines

Aroma diversity is one of the most important features in the expression of the varietal and geographic identity and sensory uniquenessof a wine. Italy has one of the largest ampelographic heritages of the world, with more than fi ve hundred diff erent varieties. Amongthem, many are used for the production of dry still white wines, many classifi ed as Protected Designation of Origins and thereforeproduced in specifi c geographical areas with well-defi ned grape varieties. Chemical and sensory characteristics of the aroma of thesewines have never been systematically studied, and the relative diversity has never been described and classifi ed. During this study,which is part of the activities of the D-Wines research consortium, we considered 249 samples of diff erent mono-varietal white winetypes (Albana, Arneis, Cortese, Erbaluce, Garganega, Gewurztraminer, Greco di Tufo, Falanghina, Fiano, Lugana, Müller Thurgau,Nosiola, Pallagrello, Pinot Grigio, Ribolla Gialla, Verdicchio, Vermentino, Vernaccia di S. Gimignano) corresponding to major ItalianPDOs. Volatile compounds primarily associated with varietal and geographical origin, namely terpenes, norisoprenoids, sulphurcompounds and methyl-salicylate, have been analysed by means of diff erent SPME-GC-MS techniques. Multivariate analysis andHierarchical Cluster Analysis of volatile compounds showed a complex segmentation in which each wine type showed patterns ofchemical compounds with similarities within the group but which at the same time partly overlapped with the patterns of other winetypes. Despite this, almost all compounds showed signifi cant diff erences according to wine type. We found that Vermentino wascharacterized by high concentrations of terpenes and in particular of linalool, whereas for other wine types either sulfur compounds,such as DMS, or norisoprenoids, such as β-damascenone, were found to be signifi cantly discriminant. Similarities between winesfrom the same grape variety but diff erent geographical origin.