An Aroma Extract Dilution Analysis (AEDA) has been carried out on three monovarietal young red wines plus a mixture of wines aged one year. The aromograms contain 85 odour‐active regions classified in four categories of intensity. The 11 most powerful odorants, 14 out of the 17 second‐most powerful, and 34 of the rest could be identified using a HPLC prefractionation method and standard HRGC‐MS‐olfactometric techniques. The most active odorants of the monovarietal wines were isoamyl and β‐phenylethyl alcohols, the ethyl esters of butyric, isobutyric, 2‐methyl butyric and hexanoic acids, γ‐nonalactone and eugenol. Some others worth mentioning are ethyl isovalerate, isoamyl acetate, hexanol, c‐3‐hexenol, linalool, geraniol, guaiacol, ethyl cinnamate, ethyl dihydrocinnamate, β‐damascenone, δ‐decalactone and wine lactone. Compounds with less aromatic intensity but also present in some of the wines were sotolon, isopropyl‐ and isobutylmethoxypyrazines and 4‐mercapto‐4‐methylpentan‐2‐one. Data show that there are no impact compounds characteristic of only one variety, and that differences between varieties are quantitative rather than qualitative.
© 1999 Society of Chemical Industry