A Study of Correlation Between Enological Colorimetric Indexes and CIE Colorimetric Parameters in Red Wines

¹ Laboratorio de Color de La Rioja, Luis de Ulloa 20 26004 Logroño, Spain
² Departamento de Optica de la Universidad de Granada. Facultad de Ciencias 18071 Granada, Spain.

Enologists make use of many different colorimetric parameters to control the evolution of wine color. Some of them are easily determined, but not very accurate, while those which are more precise tend to be difficult to measure. In this work, indexes of Sudraud, Glories, and Kerenyi-Kampis, and X, Y, Z, x, y, L^*, a^*, b^* CIE colorimetric parameters of 308 red wines were measured. Study of the correlations shows high coefficients between several of them. We conclude that the best colorimetric control of wines in the cellar can be made using Glories' index, Intensity of Color and Sudraud's index, Tint.

Key words: red wine, color, colorimetric parameters

Submitted on March 15, 1994