What metabolomics teaches us about wine shelf life

Abstract

The metabolomics era started about 22 years ago, and wine was one of the first foodstuff subjects of analysis and investigation by this technique. Wine, which is most likely the richest food in terms of number of metabolites, was an excellent chemical model solution for chemists to explore the potentialities of this new technique, which enable untargeted study. Since then, metabolomics techniques were applied in several oenological studies shedding light on numerous questions from vine to glass.
In fact, metabolomics techniques helped us to gain knowledge on the chemical modifications taking place during the wine aging and shelf life, which has a paramount importance since wine is one of the few foods that aging may improve its sensorial character and economical value. Recently, the combination of well-designed experiments, high-resolution mass spectrometers and modern informatic tools opened new roads for better understating how primary and secondary metabolites are modified during aging, and we learned new reactions taking place or followed in detailed reactions which were not very clear. This talk will provide a snapshot of recent publications regarding the behaviour of wine’s metabolome during shelf life.