Correlation of chemical composition and sensory scores in Spanish Monastrell red wines: Insights from a blind wine competition

Red wine is a complex beverage, both chemically and sensorially, making it a very interesting beverage from a sensory perspective. Additionally, wine offers consumers a multitude of choices and brands. Considering this diversity, wine competitions and scoring could provide a way of helping consumers in their choices. In this study, sixty-seven commercial Spanish Monastrell red wines, which participated in an official blind contest, were grouped into different winemaking categories based on aging and wood contact. These wines were chemically analyzed to explore relationships between their allocated groups and their chemical composition. Additionally, the study aimed to find correlations between the total scores given in the contest and the wines' volatile compounds, chromatic parameters, and physicochemical properties. The goal was also to identify the chemical parameters that most strongly correlated with the obtained scores. Considering all 67 wines, the results showed a significant linear regression between the wine scores and their physicochemical and volatile compounds, with a coefficient of determination of 48.4 %. However, when the wines were analyzed considering the different categories, the coefficient of determination for those wines competing in the category of aged wines increased up to 84.8 %. In addition, some wine chromatic characteristics such as color intensity, total phenol index and polymeric anthocyanin seemed to be highly related to the score received for the wines in a contest. Therefore, the results obtained in this work can be useful to define a certain style of wine that most probably could get a higher score in a wine contest. •This study explores correlations between wine scores and its chemical composition.•Results showed high correlations between some chromatic parameters and wine scores.•The information obtained can enhance high-scoring Monastrell wine production