AROMA COMPOUNDS AS MARKERS OF WINE QUALITY IN THE CASE OF MALVAZIJA ISTARSKA YOUNG WINE

In order to investigate the relationship between sensory and gas chromatographic analysis data, and to establish if particular aroma compounds could be used as Malvazija istarska young wine quality markers, 30 samples of Malvazija istarska young wine were subjected to sensory evaluation and gas chromatographic analysis of aroma compounds. Linear regression and principal component analysis were applied in order to establish the relations between sensory evaluation scores and aroma compound concentrations in corresponding wines. The most important contributors to the characterization and differentiation of wines evaluated with higher sensory evaluation scores were isoamyl acetate, ethyl hexanoate, ethyl octanoate, ethyl decanoate, hexanoic acid, octanoic acid and decanoic acid. On the other hand, wines evaluated with lower sensory evaluation scores were characterized and differentiated by higher amounts of isoamyl alcohol and isobutanol. Mentioned esters and acids were also found to be the most important variables for the classification of these wines according to quality using stepwise linear discriminant analysis (SLDA). The evaluation of the SLDA model was performed by cross-validation, obtaining an average percentage of correct classification of 100.0%, and of correct prediction of 89.3%. The results of this investigation suggest that above-mentioned esters, acids and alcohols could be used as markers of Malvazija istarska young wine quality.