Effect of ethanol, glycerol, glucose/fructose and tartaric acid on the refractive index of model aqueous solutions and wine samples

•The refractive index of aqueous wine model solutions can be modelled using linear regression.•Glucose/fructose had the greatest effect on the refractive index.•Ethanol had the least effect on the refractive index.•The resulting models had R-squared over 97.3%. The refractive index is a basic optical property of materials. This study explores the effect of ethanol, glycerol, tartaric acid and glucose/fructose on the refractive index in model aqueous solutions and in dry white wines. Various model aqueous solutions consisting of these components were prepared and the refractive index was measured at 20 °C and each component was studied both alone and in mixtures with the others. The refractive index of white dry wines samples was also measured. A linear regression analysis was performed and linear multi-dependence equations were derived. The resulting regression models had a coefficient of determination over 97.3%. Glucose/fructose was found to have the greatest effect on the refractive index, followed by tartaric acid and glycerol while ethanol had the smallest effect. The knowledge of the correlation of the concentration of each wine component to the refractive index can be of value for the estimation of fermentation kinetics.