Aroma Recovery in Wine Dealcoholization by SCC Distillation

The aroma recovery in wine dealcoholization by spinning cone column (SCC) distillation technique has been studied, with the analysis of the influence of the process factors: raw wine flow rate and aromatic extraction percentage. This aroma recovery has been measured in terms of aromatic richness (number of peaks obtained in the chromatogram) and aromatic intensity (total peaks area of the chromatogram) using the parameters global aromatic intensity (I-ga) and aromatic concentration factor. The headspace solid-phase microextraction method and gas chromatography have been used for the determination of the aromatic compounds in raw wine and in the corresponding dealcoholized wine and the aromatic fraction separated during the SCC distillation. The optimal conditions for SCC distillation process were selected as the ones that separate the aromatic fraction with the highest I-ga and the highest aromatic richness (percentage of recovered peaks) as well as with the lowest ethanol content.