Abstract
The elemental composition of wine provides information important to origin, authenticity, and sensory considerations. While various wine regions and varieties of still wines have been extensively studied, limited research has evaluated the metal profile of sparkling wines, which may be present in the bottle-fermented Traditional method (TM) or tank-fermented Charmat method (CM), in rosé or non-rosé styles. In this study, 73 commercial sparkling wines from Canada’s Niagara Peninsula were analyzed by inductively coupled plasma–optical emission spectrometry (ICP-OES) and inductively coupled plasma–mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) to quantify 28 metal ions (Ag, Al, As, B, Ba, Be, Ca, Cd, Co, Cr, Cu, Fe, K, Mg, Mn, Mo, Na, Ni, Pb, Sb, Se, Sn, Sr, Ti, Tl, U, V, Zn). All metal levels were below internationally regulated maximum limits. Higher mean levels of Cr, Ni, and Sr (0.021 ± 0.008 mg/L, 0.018 ± 0.004 mg/L and 0.32 ± 0.07 mg/L, respectively) and lower mean levels of B (3.0 ± 0.6 mg/L) were identified in CM compared to TM wines. Cr and Ni are of particular interest due to their association with stainless-steel contact during CM production. Additionally, results identified higher mean levels of K (613 ± 153 mg/L) and lower mean levels of Cu (0.034 ± 0.036 mg/L) in rosé compared with non-rosé style wines. These results represent the first investigation of metal content in Canadian sparkling wines and identify important elemental differences related to production technique which can inform future authenticity assessments.
- Received November 2021.
- Revision received February 2022.
- Accepted February 2022.
- Published online March 2022
This is an open access article distributed under the CC BY license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).