Elemental analysis of selected wines by particle induced X-ray emission (PIXE) for determination of geographical...

This study employs multi-element analytical methods and statistical tools to authenticate the geographical origin and verify the compliance of varietal wines with international and national standards. A total of 22 wine samples from five countries across four continents (Australia, Argentina, New Zealand and South Africa) were analysed, including Slovak wines, altogether from six vineyard regions. The investigation involved evaporating and incinerating wine samples, followed by PIXE analysis using the CENTA 3 MeV proton beam to detect 17 elements. ICP-MS and F-AAS was utilised to validate the solid sample preparation method to detect overall 23 elements. The resulting concentrations of 14 elements from the PIXE, ICP-MS and F-AAS measurements were in good agreement. Slovak white wines, compared to countries influenced by the ocean, were characterised by higher concentrations of Rb and Ba, and in the case of red wines Mg, Al, Si, P and Ca were dominant. The identified elements were subjected to Linear Discriminant Analysis (LDA) to characterise the geographic origin of the wines and validate their declared provenance. Despite the use of a relatively small statistical set, the recognizability of the samples was at the level of 100 %.