Classification of Slovak varietal white wines by volatile compounds

Selected volatile compounds in the most widely produced Slovak varietal white wines, Welschriesling, Grüner Veltliner and Müller Thurgau, were analysed over a 3 year period. The study aimed to find a combination of volatiles that could serve as an input for the classification of these wines using multivariate data analysis. Significant differences among the wine samples as regards variety, producer and vintage were initially examined using ANOVA. Two classification techniques were also employed, namely linear (LDA) and quadratic (QDA) discriminant analyses. LDA revealed five volatile compounds that enabled a satisfactory classification of the wines by variety, and 10 volatiles for the classification of producers. QDA was slightly less successful in distinguishing the varieties; however, the classification of producers was comparable with the LDA results when using a significantly smaller number of variables.