Leveraging Aroma Kits and Machine Learning: A Novel Rapid Sensory and Electronic Profiling of French and Chinese Marselan Wines

Marselan is a cultivar experiencing rapid growth in China's wine industry, yet the sensory profile differences between French and Chinese Marselan wines remain poorly characterized. To address this, seven commercial Marselan wines were selected for analysis, comprising five wines from three representative Chinese regions (Ningxia/CN, Shanxi/CS, Xinjiang/CX) and two from France. Odor characteristics were evaluated using Check-All-That-Apply (CATA) with the aid of an aroma kit (Le Nez du Vin, France), Polarized Projective Mapping with Ultra-Flash Profiling (PPM-UFP), and electronic nose (E-nose) analysis. Flavor characteristics were assessed using PPM-UFP and electronic tongue (E-tongue) techniques. Results demonstrated strong similarity between CATA with the aroma kit and PPM-UFP (RV = 0.895). Furthermore, CATA showed substantial agreement with E-nose analysis (RV = 0.753), while PPM-UFP exhibited even higher similarity with both E-nose (RV = 0.826) and E-tongue (RV = 0.761), confirming the effectiveness of both modified methodologies. In E-nose data analysis, K-nearest neighbors (KNN)-based methods KNN, principal component analysis (PCA)-KNN, and linear discriminant analysis (LDA)-KNN achieved perfect classification accuracy (1.0000), significantly outperforming support vector machine (SVM)-based (0.619-0.881) and back-propagation neural network (BPNN)-based (0.1429-0.7143) approaches. All four analytical methods successfully distinguished French and Chinese Marselan wines. French Marselan wines exhibited fewer animal-related attributes compared to Chinese ones, differences that may reflect regional variations in climate and winemaking practices. The findings support that aroma kit-assisted rapid sensory methods with electronic sensors and machine learning provide a robust framework for wine sensory profiling. This study provides valuable insights for quality improvement of Chinese Marselan wines and demonstrates the considerable potential of aroma kits in enhancing rapid descriptive sensory analysis.