# Madeira Wine Volatile Profile. A Platform to Establish Madeira Wine Aroma Descriptors
## 2 Results and Discussion
### Potential Impact Odorants of Madeira Wines  
As observed in Table 2, young (3 to 5 years old) Madeira wines are characterized by freshness and fruitiness descriptors (e.g., citrus, floral, fruity), whereas the old (10 to 20 years old) Madeira wines are characterized by caramel, dried fruits, spice, toast and wood notes based on sensory analysis [6; 46]. The information reported in Table 2 was obtained by a panelist of eleven expert judges belonging to different Madeira wine companies, such Madeira Wine Company, Barbeito, Borges, Justinos, and some employees from Instituto do Vinho Madeira, and also supported on previous studies [6; 46]. A relationship-based approach consisting of two different nodes was built: (i) 15 Madeira wine aroma notes, and (ii) 82 VOCs that are known to explain each of these aroma notes (Figure 1). The concentration and OT of each VOC is necessary to determine its contribution to overall Madeira wine aroma. In the current research, a semi-quantification was performed in order to establish a potential relationship between Madeira wines profiling and their odor descriptors with wines sensorial evaluation. As observed in Figure 1, different aroma notes were found for the same VOC, which could be influenced by odor the intensity evaluation, as well as VOCs concentration and nature of matrix analyzed. So, the resulting aroma relationship-based approach is too complex to achieve more information [6; 11; 37; 38; 39; 40; 41; 42; 43; 44; 45]. A projection of this relationship-based approach is the aroma system (Figure 2), in which two nodes (Madeira wine aroma notes) are linked if they share at least one aroma note. The color line represents the number of shared compounds. \begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{c c c} \hline \hline \multicolumn{3}{c}{**Madeira Wine Sensory Analysis**} \\ \hline
**Variety** & **Younger wines (3 to 5 Years Old)** & **Older wines (10 to 20 Years Old)** \\ \hline \multirow{2}{*}{Malvasia} & Almond, banana, citrus, cocoa, floral, tobacco, wood & Almond, caramel, dried fruits, spice, tobacco, toast, vanilla, wood \\  & Almond, banana, cocoa, floral, tea & Almond, caramel, dried fruits, spice, tea, toast, wood \\ \multirow{2}{*}{Sercial} & Citrus, honey, mushroom, waxy & Dried fruits, honey, spice, toast, vanilla, wood \\  & Banana, floral, honey, mushroom, spice & Dried fruits, ethereal, honey, spice, toast, wood \\ \multirow{2}{*}{Tinta Negra} & Citrus, ripe fruit, tea, wood & Caramel, dried fruits, spice, tea, toast, wood \\ \hline \hline \end{tabular}
\end{table} 
Table 2: Madeira wines sensory analysis obtained from different grape varieties, types, and ages. Figure 1: Madeira wine aroma notes (middle column), together with the chemical families (82 VOCs) that explain its aroma notes (left and right columns). Volatile compounds are shown in boldface if shared at least two or more aroma odors. According to the obtained results, the grape variety seems to have a great impact in the sensorial properties of young Madeira wines, among several other parameters (e.g., vinicification procedure). Specific aroma notes are linked to grape variety, as for example Malvasia and Bual grapes, used to produce sweet and medium sweet wines characterized by almond and cocoa odors. Dry and medium dry Madeira wines, obtained from Sercial and Verdelho grapes, are characterized by mushroom and honey notes. These grape varieties specific notes are shared, on average, by three VOCs. However, few aroma notes are connected between these grape varieties. Malvasia, Bual and Verdelho grapes are connected by flower and fruit odors and are shared, on average, by 31 VOCs, whereas the citrus odors linked to Malvasia, Tinta Negra and Sercial are shared by nine VOCs. In terms of Madeira aroma notes, young wines from Malvasia and Bual grapes are the most complex, contrarily to the observed for Tinta Negra, Sercial and Verdelho (Figure 2). For the oldest wines, it was observed that several aroma notes (e.g., dried fruit, spice, toast, wood) were present in all varieties under study.