Improving Holiday Toasts - Using Chemical Analysis Techniques to Ensure Quality of Wine

Most holiday celebrations are not complete without the proverbial toast to the sound of clinking wine glasses. While few revellers consider the time and painstaking processes that go into making the wine they're imbibing, wine makers must be closely attuned to the colour, aroma, taste and overall quality of each sip. The oldest association in the Italian wine industry, the Unione Italiana Vini (Italian Wine Union), includes members from every professional organization involved in the winegrowing supply chain. The Union has developed comprehensive quality standards for the winemaking process and provides a variety services to help ensure high-quality winemaking. As a result it takes all aspects of the wine experience very seriously. It relies not only on experienced wine connoisseurs to ensure the quality of the wine, but also utilizes Agilent equipment in an innovative central laboratory system to ensure a high and uniform level of quality, environmental protection and the ongoing integrity of the winemaking tradition.
The central laboratory of the Unione Italiana Vini, located in Verona, Italy, oversees a modern network of six laboratories and four independent laboratories which are all under contract. This system of laboratories provides physical, physico-chemical, and microbiological analysis of the raw materials used in wine making. There are also
laboratories focused on related materials, such as natural corks, synthetic stoppers and bottles, a soil and fine analysis laboratory, a laboratory for auxiliary products such as additives, and an innovative new laboratory devoted to chemico-sensory analysis.
Innovations in chemical analysis, gas and liquid chromatography, and mass spectrometry have advanced the study of key components of the wine experience, such colour, taste, and smell, to the point that it has attained the levels of analytical chemistry. As such, Agilent's chemical analysis instrumentation has long been used by the Unione Italiana Vini's operations.