Application of Electronic Tongue for Quantitative Analysis of Mineral Water and Wine

An electronic tongue comprising 29 potentiometric chemical sensors and pattern recognition tools for the data processing has been applied for the analysis of Italian produced mineral waters and dry red wines. The electronic tongue appeared to be capable to distinguish between different sorts of mineral waters, between contaminated by organic matter waters and pure ones and between Barbera wine samples of the same denomination but from different vineyards. Simultaneously with qualitative recognition, quantitative determination of some components in the water and the wine has been performed. The electronic tongue can be highly valuable in food quality control.