Quality aroma improvement of Muscat wine spirits: A new approach using first-principles model-based design and multi-objective dynamic optimisation through multi-variable analysis techniques

Abstract

This work proposes a model-based methodology to produce recipes for Muscat wine dis-tillations in Charentais alembics. The recipes were obtained by dynamic multi-objectiveoptimisation of a multi-component first-principles model. Two multi-objective functionswere developed considering chemical markers that define the aromatic characteristic of thedistillates. The first function included three chemical markers characteristic of each dis-tillation cut (head, heart and tail). The second considered a principal component analysis(PCA) applied to the chemical profile of Chilean commercial distillates. The optimal recipes were experimentally validated in an automatic Charentais alembic using a synthetic Mus-cat wine consisting of ethanol and water, plus six congeners. The experimental resultsindicated that by using model-based optimisation techniques, it is possible to obtain spir-its with a chemical composition like some Chilean commercial distillates. In addition, thechemical composition of many commercial distillates was close to a Pareto front that definesa compromise between linalool, a characteristic Muscat floral aroma, and acetaldehyde, ahead contaminant marker.