The WISHELI project has received funding as a part of the Rural Development Plan from Umbria’s region (measure 16 – undermeasure 16.1) and aims to find new production technics to improve the shelf-life of white wines in Umbria and to develop a test to predict the shelf-life of a wine lot in a simple way.
Francesca Borghini from the company ISVEA specialized in analytical services presented the preliminary results obtained in collaboration with the prof. Andrea Bellincontro from the University of La Tuscia (DIBAF) and the prof. Panagiotis Arapitsas from the Edmund Mach Foundation.
The working team concentrated on two action lines in order to identify some markers of the early aging of bottled wines using climatic chambers, through small scale vinification and to assess if there are some strategies to adopt to improve the shelf life.
Five white wines were exposed to various temperatures 13, 23, 35 e 45 °C, the two last being realistic in the process of wine transportation.
The wines have been analyzed after performing short to long stays up to 90 days at this stage of the project. The experiment will continue at 13°C and 23°C stays up to 180 and 365 days.
Wine were analyzed with nondestructive methods using an artificial nose as well as a NIR spectroscopy, studying the aromatic profile using gas chromatography couple with mass spectroscopy, a sensory analysis and chemical analysis with classical methods and of the polyphenol profile thanks to liquid chromatography coupled with high resolution mass spectrometer.
The various data were analyzed through several multi variate technics (as PCA, RDA of interpretative type) and some model based and predictable analysis such as PLS-DA using the cross validations technics to assess the reliability of used models.
With the chemical analysis, with RDA, we can observe, choosing as input data the type of treatment (time/temperature couples) a data clusterization based on the applied treatment; the natural evolution being very different from the thermal stress induced evolution.
The parameters that characterize the stay ad high temperature for long times are TDN, Vitispiran and Furfural among aromas as well as sulphonated epicatechin and nicotinamide.
For the natural evolution the variables are both aroma type with a decrease of esters and terpens and as well as polyphenols (total flavanols). The analysis will be repeated after 365 days conservation as planned.
Using the NIR a good discrimination between treatments is already observed with the PCA without going through RDA so NIT seems to be a good technic with a good predictive capacity as well as quick and sustainable.
Small scale wine making was conducted on trebbiano e grechetto with pre-fermentative cold macerations and the use of de-metallizing and conducting analysis on grapes, musts, wines in the various elaboration phases and will go through the analytical plan previously defined.
The WISHELI project team is composed by the wineries Famiglia Cotarella, Monrubio, Terre della Custodia, Castello delle Regine, ISVEA, Impresa Verde and the University from La Tuscia (DIBAF department)
For more information on the WISHELI project contact ISVEA
