Electronic Wine Taster

Reported December 2009

BARCELONA (Ivanhoe Newswire) -- Whether it's a red or a white, a 2006 or a 1966, wine connoisseurs rely on their taste buds to distinguish a fine glass of vino from vinegar. But now, when it comes to judging wine, wine lovers may have more than just their own mouth to rely on.

Mary O'Connor's passion is wine. As director of Planeta Vino in Madrid, Spain, it's her job to teach people how to judge a glass of vino. But now she may have more than just her taste buds to rely on.

At just the touch of a button, an electronic tongue, developed in Barcelona, is a wine connoisseur. Similar to taste buds on a tongue, the six sensors on this microchip measure the different chemical components of wine.

After it's calibrated to a specific wine, the device can distinguish between grape variety and vintage year.

"The signal we obtain in the system is interpolated in the graphic," Cecilia Jimenez, of the Barcelona Institute of Microelectronics, told Ivanhoe. "This wine we have here is a garnacha."

Wine industry specialists like O'Connor say the electronic tongue could be useful to prevent fraud.

"People who've paid a lot of money and think that it's of a certain vintage and of a certain providence and its not," O'Connor explained.

But as for tasting, she would prefer to leave that job up to her.

"Nobody doubts the technical capacity of this new technology, but will it ever be able to replace the human palette and judge actual quality?" O'Connor questioned.

Pleasing the palette with a smooth finish.

So far the electronic tongue can distinguish four different types of wines -- chardonnay, aisen, malvasia and macadbeu, and it can measure the difference between a 2005 vintage and a 2007. Jimenez hopes that one day the technology will be scaled down into a hand held, portable device that can be bought for personal and commercial use.

This report has been produced thanks to a generous grant from the Camille and Henry Dreyfus Foundation, Inc.

Click here to Go Inside This Science or contact:

Cecilia Jimenez
Instituto de Microelectronica de Barcelona, Spain
Tel: 34-935-947-700 ext. 1305
Cecilia.Jimenez@cnm.es

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