Wines can be mimicked by the detailed addition of glycerol, sugars, colours, water and other additives. Sometimes this is carefully balanced so that the fraud is difficult to detect by analysis of one parameter alone.
In this paper (open access conference presentation from researchers in Crimea) the authors propose a specification for “authentic” wines based upon 11 analytical indicators.
This is based on in-house research where they prepared 3500 counterfeit wines adulterated in different ways, and studied the feedback effect of changing one analytical parameter upon another. All parameters were measured using established and published test methods that are considered accessible to industrial laboratories. They observed that every type of adulteration had an indirect effect on another analytical parameter, so if sufficient parameters were measured it was very difficult for fraudsters to mask their activity. Specification ranges were established by training sets prepared from their in-house adulterated and unadulterated wines.
Table reproduced from the publication, Creative Commons licence
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