Flavour profiling of strawberry wine by quantitative descriptive analysis technique

The flavour profiling of wines from 3 cultivars ('Camarosa' 'Chandler' and 'Doughlas') prepared by different methods (control, thermovinification, carbonic maceration and fermented on the skin) was carried out by descriptive analysis. Out of the 14 descriptors attempted, 6 had very high intensity (strawberry like, alcoholic, phenolic, higher alcoholic, astringency and bitterness) and the remaining (vegetative, yeasty and earthy) were found to have lower intensity. The principal component analysis (PCA) of the flavour profiling data of these wines revealed a weak separation along PC-I and PC-II of the wines made on the basis of methods of preparation. Based on PCA, it was found that strawberry like attribute exerted a maximum influence on PC-I, while the PC-II was affected by sweety attribute. The flavour profiling characterized the strawberry wines of different treatments successfully. Those fermented on the skin were specific for intensity of phenolic, higher alcoholic and strawberry like while the control wine was peculiar for vegetative, alcoholic and sweety notes. The wines fermented with carbonic maceration were characteristic for all-spices, bitterness, astringency and sour descriptors. However, among the cultivars 'Camarosa' and 'Chandler' have significantly higher flavour intensities than 'Doughlas' for alcoholic, vinegary, astringency, sour, phenolic and strawberry like but lower than 'Doughlas' for fruity, and higher alcoholic. The PCA clearly reflected that the cultivar exerted more influence on flavour profile than the treatments used to make wine.