Despite not physically resembling a human tongue, the electronic tongue, or ‘e-tongue,’ surpassed human senses in detecting contaminated wine in a recent study. In this study, the e-tongue detected signs of microorganisms in white wine within a week of contamination, which was four weeks earlier than a human panel noticed changes in aroma. Additionally, the e-tongue detected these microbes before they could be grown from the wine in a petri-dish. Traditionally, winemakers rely on sniffing the wine and petri-dish testing to identify potential wine faults or spoilage.”lead”>The “e-tongue” may not look like a human tongue, but it performed better than the human senses in detecting contaminated wine in a recent study.
During an experiment at Washington State University, the e-tongue detected microorganisms in white wine within a week after contamination, which was four weeks earlier than a human panel noticed the change in aroma. It was also before those microbes could be grown from the wine in a petri-dish. Winemakers typically rely on sniffing the wine and petri-dish testing to identify potential issues.There is a potential for wine ”faults” or spoilage, as shown in the Journal of Food Science. The findings suggest that e-tongue testing could complement existing methods and help winemakers identify and address issues earlier. According to Carolyn Ross, a food science professor at WSU and the study’s corresponding author, “If you ran a sample using the electronic tongue, we could learn after one week if there’s contamination or a wine fault problem, versus waiting up to four weeks running just sensory testing.” Ross, who is also the director of WSU’s Sensory Science Center, added, “It’s really helpful with understanding wine quality.”In a liquid, the e-tongue’s sensors can detect it by analyzing for specific compounds. At WSU, Ross’ team created and programmed the instrument for various purposes, including creating a type of “fingerprint” of wine and gathering a variety of information that may be helpful to winemakers. “It provides valuable information about the overall quality of the wines,” Ross said, while acknowledging that this type of analysis is most effective when used alongside other methods of assessing wine quality. In this experiment, the researchers intentionally introduced four different microbes to separate bottles of Riesling. These microbes are known tocontaminating white wine can spoil it and create unpleasant odors such as nail polish remover, geranium, and “mousy” smells. A group of 13 volunteers were taught to recognize various wine smells, good and bad, including these odors.
The trained panel then smelled uncontaminated wine as a control and samples of contaminated wine that had been stored for seven to 42 days. The electronic tongue was also used and identified the contamination of all types after seven days of storage. The human sensory panel only began to detect contamination in some samples afterWithin 35 days of storage, a full 28 days after the e-tongue, Ross and her colleagues conducted tests with red wine in a previous study. They are now working on improving the instrument housed at the WSU Sensory Science Center and are creating a library to enhance its “tasting” abilities. Ross is currently seeking winery clients who are interested in using the e-tongue to evaluate the quality of their products. The study received support from the Washington Wine and Grape Research fund and the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Additional co-authors on the study include Rachel Potter and Claire.Warren of WSU and Jungmin Lee of the U.S.D.A. Agricultural Research Service.
Journal Reference:
- Rachel I. Potter, Claire A. Warren, Jungmin Lee, Carolyn F. Ross. Comparative assessment of Riesling wine fault development by the electronic tongue and a sensory panel. Journal of Food Science, 2024; DOI: 10.1111/1750-3841.17036