Characterization of volatile organic compounds as potential aging markers in Chinese rice wine using multivariable statistics

Abstract

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

Comprehensive two‐dimensional gas chromatography mass spectrometry‐based untargeted metabolomics to clarify the dynamic variations in the volatile composition of Huangjiu of different ages

“…These results were similar to those reported by N. Wang et al. (2019). In addition, 19 alcohols, formed by the deamination of amino acids during Huangjiu fermentation (Xu et al., 2017), were detected in the Huangjiu samples.…”

“…Traditionally, newly brewed Huangjiu is aged in pottery jars at ambient temperature to develop a more harmonious aroma and a smoother mouth feel (Fan & Xu, 2012; Shen et al, 2012). The flavor quality of Huangjiu improves with age, owing to a series of chemical and physical reactions occurring during storage, such as esterification, oxidation, hydrolysis reactions, and alcohol–water hydrogen bonding (Cao et al., 2018; N. Wang et al., 2019). Therefore, the commercial value of Huangjiu is closely related to its age; as a result, Huangjiu is often labeled with its age as a measure of quality, which influences consumers’ choice (Chen et al., 2019; Y. Yang et al., 2019).…”

“…For instance, the changes in the volatile compounds of Huangjiu during storage were traced via GC‐MS for discrimination of wine age (Xiao et al., 2015). Some volatile compounds detected by GC‐MS were regarded as potential aging markers to distinguish the ages of Huangjiu , such as sotolon, acetophenone, vanillin, and guaiacol (N. Wang et al., 2019). However, GC‐MS presents some limitations of separation capacity, which may result in the neglect of some important volatile compounds that are unknown or present in low concentrations but have significant impact on the aroma characteristics of Huangjiu .…”

Flavor Formation in Chinese Rice Wine (Huangjiu): Impacts of the Flavor-Active Microorganisms, Raw Materials, and Fermentation Technology

“…Aging involves two processes: physical maturation and chemical maturation (Tao et al, 2014). During physical maturation, the hydrogen bonding among flavor compounds of Huangjiu and the volatilization of heterogeneous volatile compounds may contribute to the final flavor characteristic of Huangjiu (Cao et al, 2018;Wang et al, 2019). As for chemical maturation aging, a variety of chemical reactions, such as oxidation, esterification, and hydrolysis reactions, may affect the composition of flavor compounds, and thus are responsible for the flavor quality of Huangjiu.…”

Untargeted Headspace-Gas Chromatography-Ion Mobility Spectrometry in Combination with Chemometrics for Detecting the Age of Chinese Liquor (Baijiu)

“…Two data arrays were detected using HS-GC-IMS, including 212 signal peaks and 93 identified compounds. In some studies using GC-MS, UPLC-Orbitrap-MS/MS, GCpulsed flame photometric detection, and GC-flame ionization detection, samples were discriminated [8,39,40]. With HS-GC-IMS, all of the signal peaks are usually used to establish the model because of the small number of identified compounds [18,24,26,41].…”