Food Metabolomics Analysis of Wines Using LCMS™-8060NX Triple Quadrupole Mass Spectrometer

Introduction

Metabolomics is a scientific field in which the differences in multiple sample groups are clarified by comprehensively analyzing low molecular metabolites such as amino acids and organic acids which are produced by cellular activity. This technology is also applied in the field of food products and is used as a technique (food metabolomics) for searching for nutritional value and quality in foods. In recent years, nonalcoholic beverages have attracted considerable attention, particularly in the beer market. Together with improvement of the manufacturing process, this trend has also heightened the importance of component analysis of fragrance and taste components in order to impart a taste and aroma closer to those of the real product. In the wine industry as well, interest in nonalcoholic wines which are closer to real wines has also increased, while on the other hand, adulterated wines are viewed as a problem. Here, “adulterated wine” refers to wine which is produced by mixing low-cost wine with a high class wine and marketed with only the label changed. Application News No. C226 introduced an example in which wines from different producing regions and grape varieties were analyzed by food metabolomics, demonstrating that this technique can be applied to evaluations of the relationship between the fermentation process and flavor of wine. The present article introduces an example of a food metabolomics analysis using a high performance liquid chromatograph-mass spectrometer (LC/MS/MS) to clarify the differences between real wine and nonalcoholic wine, and the differences between quality (rated) wine and table (daily) wine.

July 16, 2021 GMT