Pairing wine and stopper: an old issue with new achievements

The sensory characteristics of wine are a topic studied by several researchers over time, but it continues to be a current and challenging subject. These characteristics are fundamental for the consumer acceptability, which has increasingly aroused their interest to modulate them in line with current market trends and innovation demands. The wine physical-chemical and sensory properties depend on a wide set of factors: they begin to be designed in the vineyard and are later constructed during the various stages of winemaking. Afterwards, the wine is placed in bottles and stored or commercialized.
During the storage of bottled wine several physical-chemical changes may occur, modulated by the position of the bottle, type of closure, temperature, and storage time, which impact the oxygen entrance ratio. In fact, the permeability of the stoppers to oxygen is considered one of the most important properties that influences wine sensorial properties during post-bottling (1,2). In the present study, red and white table wines stored in a horizontal position for 17.5 (white wines) and 35 months (red wines), using natural cork stoppers, different types of microagglomerated cork stoppers and a synthetic one, were characterized. To achieve a holistic view of the changes that may have occurred during bottling, a set of analysis were implemented, namely, determination of volatile components by comprehensive gas chromatography- mass spectrometry with time of flight analyser (GC×GC-ToFMS), determination of phenolic profile by ultra-high-performance liquid chromatography, coupled with tandem mass spectrometry (UHPLC-DAD-MSn), sensorial analysis performed by a trained panel, and also determination of colour, acidity (total and volatile), SO2 (free and total), and pH. The strategy used in this study provides new chemical data that allow evaluating the effect of the stopper among different type of wines. Physical-chemical and sensory analysis unveiled that the type of stopper modulates the characteristics of the wine, and its selection may be used as an oenological tool in the construction of the wine identity.