Approaches to wine aroma: C1 transfer during the reaction between diacetyl and cysteine

The Cannizzaro reaction is a base-promoted redox reaction producing a primary alcohol and a carboxylic acid from two molecules of a nonenolizable aldehyde. The reaction commences when the anionic counterpart of the base attacks the carbonyl carbon, resulting in a tetrahedral alkoxide intermediate. The base then abstracts a proton from the intermediate to generate an unstable dianionic species. This intermediate enables the release of the aldehydic hydrogen as a hydride ion. An intermolecular...

Wilhelm Rudolph Fittig discovered the pinacol coupling reaction in 1859. It is a radical dimerization reaction and involves the reductive coupling of aldehydes or ketones in the presence of hydrocarbon solvent to yield vicinal diols.

The Diels–Alder reaction is one of the robust methods for synthesizing unsaturated six-membered rings. The reaction involves a concerted cyclic movement of six π electrons: four π electrons from the diene and two π electrons from the dienophile.

Alcoholysis is a nucleophilic acyl substitution reaction in which an alcohol functions as a nucleophile. Acid halides react with alcohol to produce esters. The mechanism proceeds in three steps:

The Fischer esterification reaction was developed by the German chemist Emil Fischer in 1895. It is a condensation reaction between carboxylic acids and alcohols in an acidic medium to give esters and water.

The pinacol and McMurry reactions involve the reductive coupling of ketones or aldehydes. Similarly, the bimolecular reductive coupling of two ester molecules in the presence of sodium metal in an aprotic solvent yields an α-hydroxy ketone product. The α-hydroxy ketone is also called acyloin, so the reaction is referred to as ‘acyloin condensation.’