Profiling of free amino acids in sparkling wines during over-lees aging and evaluation of sensory properties

Abstract Sparkling wines produced with the nontraditional grape varieties Villenave, Niagara, Manzoni and Goethe, and also a classic Chardonnay variety, were investigated in this study. The aim was to determine the influence of the length of time for which the wines were exposed to biological aging in contact with yeast lees (over-lees) on the nitrogen composition and the characteristics of the sensory profile. Significant changes were observed in the concentration of free amino acids in the sparkling wines during over-lees aging. The use of multivariate analysis to investigate the nitrogen composition of sparkling wines proved to be an interesting tool to differentiate sparkling wines according to the time of biological aging. The principal component analysis clearly separated the sparkling wines according to the time of over-lees aging considering the nitrogen composition, and this behavior was observed for all varieties. Sparkling wines with 15 and 18 months of over-lees aging were associated with most of the amino acids analyzed. The sensory profiles obtained for the sparkling wines with 18 months of aging on yeast lees was characterized by descriptors of white and citrus fruits, floral and/or orange blossom, honey, butter, notes of toasted bread and vegetal, and straw-colored.