NIR and UV-vis spectroscopy, artificial nose and tongue: comparison of four fingerprinting techniques for the characterisation of Italian red wines.

Four rapid and low-cost vanguard analytical systems (NIR and UV-vis spectroscopy, a headspace-mass based artificial nose and a voltammetric artificial tongue), together with chemometric pattern recognition techniques, were applied and compared in addressing a food authentication problem: the distinction between wine samples from the same Italian oenological region, according to the grape variety. Specifically, 59 certified samples belonging to the Barbera d'Alba and Dolcetto d'Alba appellations and collected from the same vintage (2007) were analysed. The instrumental responses, after proper data pre-processing, were used as fingerprints of the characteristics of the samples: the results from principal component analysis and linear discriminant analysis were discussed, comparing the capability of the four analytical strategies in addressing the problem studied. Copyright 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.