Intraregional classification of wine via ICP-MS elemental fingerprinting

The feasibility of elemental fingerprinting in the classification of wines according to their provenance vineyard soil was investigated in the relatively small geographical area of a single wine district. Results for the Stellenbosch wine district (Western Cape Wine Region, South Africa), comprising an area of less than 1000 km2, suggest that classification of wines from different estates (120 wines from 23 estates) is indeed possible using accurate elemental data and multivariate statistical analysis based on a combination of principal component analysis, cluster analysis, and discriminant analysis. This is the first study to demonstrate the successful classification of wines at estate level in a single wine district in South Africa. The elements B, Ba, Cs, Cu, Mg, Rb, Sr, Tl and Zn were identified as suitable indicators. White and red wines were grouped in separate data sets to allow successful classification of wines. Correlation between wine classification and soil type distributions in the area was observed.