Application of untargeted volatile profiling to investigate the fate of aroma compounds during wine oral processing

•Aroma compounds evolve in the mouth during wine oral processing.•Untargeted volatile profiling data generate new hypotheses on the fate of wine aroma in mouth.•Hydrolysis and transesterification reactions may change the wine aroma composition during consumption.•Wine volatile composition changes due to oral processing depending on both age and gender.•Gender related differences are greater in young individuals than seniors. We employed an untargeted volatile profiling approach in combination with spit off-odorant measurement procedure to investigate the fate of aroma compounds in mouth by determining how oral processing and intrinsic biological variables influence the overall volatile composition. A red wine before and after oral processing (expectorated wine), and control samples (expectorated water) were analyzed using GC-TOF-MS to determine as many volatile compounds as possible. We identified compounds in expectorated wines that originated in mouth from either an endogenous or exogenous source, while confirming that compounds might have metabolized by the action of salivary enzymes. Our data also show the changes in volatiles via hydrolysis from the corresponding molecules and may provide evidence of de novo formation of volatiles via transesterification reaction in mouth. While investigating the impact of intrinsic biological variables, we found age and gender specific differences in wine volatile composition due to oral processing and identified the key volatiles.