Influence of the ripening chamber's geographical location on dry-cured Iberian ham's key odorants

Olfactometric and sensory analyses have been applied to study the possible influence of the ripening chamber's geographical location on the aroma sensory profiles and key odorants of Iberian ham. Dry-cured Iberian ham was obtained from 3 acorn-fed pigs and, for the first time, both of the participating production facilities, located in two different Andalusian municipalities with different altitudes above mean sea level, processed one of the two hind legs from each pig. The descriptive sensory profile of orthonasal and retronasal odours was determined by trained panellists, while odour-active compounds were determined by gas chromatography/mass spectrometry-olfactometry (GC/MS-O). The results obtained showed that, separately, both techniques enable Iberian ham samples to be differentiated by their ripening chamber's geographical location. For sensory analysis, retronasal sensory analysis appeared to be the most suitable for this goal, highlighting the "meat broth odour" and "roasted nuts odour" descriptors which presented significant differences between geographical locations for samples from all pigs. Moreover, ripening chamber's geographical location characteristics and the initial composition of the raw material seemed to influence the content of some odour-active compounds. The odour-active compound identified as octane/acetone and isobutanol were conditioned by the ripening chamber's geographical location, while decanal/2-ethyl-1-hexanol, 1-undecanol, 2-furanmethanol and cis-2-nonenal were also influenced by the individual pig itself. This study showed that slight climatological differences due to the location of the ripening chamber seem to have somewhat of an influence on the aromatic profile.