Abstract
M.Sc.
The South African wine industry is well respected internationally for producing
high quality wines. The possible adulteration of these wines can lead to loss of
reputation and a loss of sales and could also be dangerous to consumer’s health.
Multi-element analysis of wines is one way of implementing quality control and
the same multi-element data can also be used to prove the point of origin. The
metal content of the fruit (grapes) should represent the metal content of the soil
in which the plants (vineyards) were grown. An Inductively Coupled Plasma
Mass Spectrometer (ICP-MS) was used with correct internal standard and
interference correction to obtain reliable concentrations for 27 elements (Li, B, Al,
Sc, V, Cr, Mn, Co, Ni, Cu, Zn, Se, Rb, Sr, Zr, Nb, Mo, Cd, Sn, Sb, Ba, Ce, Nd, W,
Tl, Pb and U) of 1:1 diluted wines and microwave digested vineyard soil from four
South-African wine-producing regions: Stellenbosch, Swartland, Robertson and
Walker Bay. This multi-element data was then interpreted using multivariate
statistical analysis in order to determine which elements have the ability to
discriminate between the four regions. Li, B, Sc, Ni, Mn, Co, Cu, and Rb were
the elements that were identified to have discrimination ability. 96% of wines and
100% of vineyard soils were correctly classified. Indirectly it has been proven
that the metal content of the soil can be correlated to the metal content of the
wine. This methodology can be reliably used in industry for quality control and
routine provenance determination