Quantifying variability in grape and wine quality: a multivariate analysis perspective

Identifier:  TDX:4319

Handle: https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11797/TDX4319

Authors:  Schorn García, Daniel

Abstract:
Infrared spectroscopy (IR) is a fast and non-destructive analytical technique that provides a large amount of chemical information. This has lead to its implementation in industries (especially chemicals, petrochemicals and pharmaceuticals), while allowing the monitoring of its production processes. Thanks to the monitoring of these processes, small deviations in them can be quickly detected and corrected, which guarantees the quality of the final products and reduces production costs. IR spectroscopy is also used in the agrifood industries, although its application is not widespread due to the large number and high variability of parameters affecting its processes, making it difficult to obtain robust and reliable results. However, the benefits of its implementation are clear, which fully justifies its study. This doctoral thesis has studied various winemaking processes, such as grape maturity, alcoholic fermentation and maceration, as well as some of the sources of winemaking and oenological variability that affect them. This has allowed: to explore the impact on grape characteristics, both the position of the bunch in the vine and the grape in the bunch, and the harvest time depending on the grape variety; to check that it is possible to detect early bacterial contamination of the fermentation process; or to evaluate how the application of different color extraction techniques affects the wine obtained..