Vigorous and flexible, Chardonnay vine is the world most planted white grape variety. The derived wines have their own sensory properties, distinctly recognized by tasters (Ballester et al., 2005). Researches focused on the most encountered “yellow fruit”, “butter” and “honey” characters, leading to the evidence for non specific odorant markers (Moio et al., 1994; Lee and Noble, 2003; Jaffre 2009). However, for the finests Chardonnay wines models, experts describe a more complex bouquet, poorly studied until now. This paper exposes the investigation on molecular determinants of those specific and rare odorant characters. Chardonnay wines coming from different origins were assessed for their level of typicity. The main odorant attributes were collected among the panelists. Besides the recurrent descriptors such as “butter”, “gunflint” or “yellow fruit”, the terms “hazelnut”, “almond”, “bergamot”, “white flowers” and “verbena” emerged as important descriptors, in accordance with the tells of experts. To investigate the molecular determinants of these notes, gas chromatography olfactometry experiments were conducted on the corresponding wine extracts. Odorant Zones (OZ) “Hazelnut” and “almond” have been specifically perceived in the high typical Chardonnay wines extracts. High resolutive multidimensional GC-GCMS analysis has been focused on each of these specific OZs. Two nutty-like carrying a 5-membered ring heterocycle were evidenced. By seeking specific ions in the chromatograms, three more compounds sharing the same moiety were evidenced. Despite occurring at levels below their individual odor threshold, their occurrence in typical Chardonnay wines was significantly more abundant than in bad Chardonnay wine examples and non Chardonnay wines. This result is noticed regardless of oak aging. The paper deals with the odorant behavior of a single family of volatile markers present in combination. A new model of compounds entering into the composition of Chardonnay model wines is proposed. Those results open up new prospects for a more accurate monitoring of Chardonnay winemaking.

Typicity of great Chardonnay wines, evidence for new potent markers

251st National Meeting (2016)

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.