Intra-oral adsorption and release of aroma compounds following in-mouth wine exposure.

Wine "after-odour" defined as the long lasting aroma perception that remains after wine swallowing is an outstanding characteristic in terms of wine quality but a relatively unstudied phenomenon. Among the different parameters that might affect wine after-odour, the adsorption of odorants by the oral mucosa could be important but has been little explored. In this work, the impact of the chemical characteristics of aroma compounds on intra-oral adsorption was assessed by an in vivo approach that determined the amounts of odorants remaining in expectorated wine samples. In addition, the subsequent aroma release after in-mouth wine exposure was studied by means of intra-oral SPME/GC-MS using three different panellists. Oral adsorption of the aroma compounds added to the wines ranged from 6% to 43%, depending on their physicochemical characteristics. A progressive intra-oral aroma decrease at different decay rates depending on compound type and panellist was also found. The strength of the aroma-oral mucosa interactions seems to explain these results more than the amount of compound adsorbed by the oral mucosa.