Characterization of Greek Wines by Ultraviolet–Visible Absorption Spectroscopy and Statistical Multivariate Methods

ABSTRACTOptical absorption spectroscopy has been used to study Cretan Greek wine matured for 3 months in various barrels. Vilana and Dafni white and Kotsifali and Mandilari red wines were analyzed. The total phenolic index for all varieties and color characteristics for only the red wine were determined. Principal component analysis (PCA) and hierarchical cluster analysis (HCA) demonstrated that the absorption spectra, combined with multivariate statistical methods, may be used to identify these varieties. The results of principal component analysis were used to infer the chemical compounds responsible for the discrimination between varieties.