New PLS analysis approach to wine volatile compounds characterization by near infrared spectroscopy (NIR).

This work aims to explore the potential of near infrared (NIR) spectroscopy to quantify volatile compounds in Vinho Verde wines, commonly determined by gas chromatography. For this purpose, 105 Vinho Verde wine samples were analyzed using Fourier transform near infrared (FT-NIR) transmission spectroscopy in the range of 5435 cm-1 to 6357 cm-1. Boxplot and principal components analysis (PCA) were performed for clusters identification and outliers removal. A partial least square (PLS) regression was then applied to develop the calibration models, by a new iterative approach. The predictive ability of the models was confirmed by an external validation procedure with an independent sample set. The obtained results could be considered as quite good with coefficients of determination (R2) varying from 0.94 to 0.97. The current methodology, using NIR spectroscopy and chemometrics, can be seen as a promising rapid tool to determine volatile compounds in Vinho Verde wines.

Malolactic fermentation of wines with immobilised lactic acid bacteria - influence of concentration, type of support material and storage conditions.

Corn cobs, grape skins and grape stems were evaluated as support materials for immobilization of the lactic acid bacteria Oenococcus oeni. The support materials with immobilized cells were further used in malolactic fermentation (MLF) of white wine. Viability of using the immobilized supports was evaluated in consecutive batch fermentations under different conditions of temperature, ethanol and SO(2). Additionally, the possibility of storage and operational stability of the immobilized supports was also studied. All the three supports presented large potential for immobilization of O. oeni cells. The consecutive batches of MLF were successfully conducted for a total period of around 5 months with the possibility of storage of the biocatalyst for 30 d in wine at 25°C.