BACKGROUND There is a close relationship between certain ‘aging markers’ in wine and the wine's age. This study aimed to characterize all extracted aging markers in Chinese rice wine and distinguish the ages of Chinese rice wine using principal component analysis (PCA) and cluster analysis (CA). RESULTS A total of 49 potential aging markers (P ≤ 0.05*) were extracted from 71 volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in Chinese rice wine across a range of seven different ages. Of all 49 extracted aging markers, all furans, 2/3 aldehydes and ketones maintained significantly increasing levels with age (P ≤ 0.01**), especially sotolon (0.981**) and acetophenone (0.951**). On the other hand, all sulfides decreased significantly (P ≤ 0.01**). Changes in vanillin, guaiacol, 4‐vinylguaiacol (4‐VG) and 4‐ethylguaiacol (4‐EG) also suggested a potential synthesis during the aging process. The results of PCA and CA demonstrated that Chinese rice wines with different ages could be clearly distinguished from each other, which was consistent with the evolution of the 49 aging markers during the aging process. CONCLUSION These 49 potential ‘aging markers’ successfully distinguished ages using PCA and CA. Our results therefore throw light on the characterization of VOCs during Chinese rice wine aging, and provide a quantitative basis for discriminating the ages of Chinese rice wine. © 2019 Society of Chemical Industry