Pattern-based discrimination of organic acids and red wine varietals by arrays of synthetic receptors

Modern instrumental analytical techniques pervade chemical analyses in the authentication, quality control and research in wines. A potential alternative approach that does not involve the use of expensive analytical equipment, though dependent on availability of suitable chemical receptors, is array sensing. A 3 × 3 array of sensing ensembles that function via indicator displacement assays, and are composed of previously explored boronic acid receptors and indicators, was used for the discrimination of three organic acids commonly found in wine. This array, after finding it suitable for discriminating malate, tartrate and citrate, was used for the pattern-based discrimination of six wine varietals. Linear discriminant analysis of spectroscopic data obtained from the addition of the organic acids and wines to the array showed satisfactory discrimination of all analytes. Such a sensor array is envisioned to ultimately be able to classify wine varietals.