A comprehensive metabolomic study of wine from the Vaud Switzerland vineyard

In recent years, terroir characteristics have become increasingly important for the wine industry. A recent study conducted in the Vaud viticultural area has shown that vine nitrogen content appeared to be one of the most important parameter that influence the vine-fruit-wine continuum. In order to confirm these results, a large scale study on several sites during five seasons (2006–2010) in the Vaud vineyards has been undertaken on soil presenting the same characteristics. A given concentration of assimilable nitrogen has been supplied on leaves during the grape-growing to simulate the vine nitrogen content. To unravel the subtle biochemical changes induced by nitrogen supply on wine composition, a combined metabolomic approach based on reverse phase and hydrophilic interaction liquid chromatography TOF-MS and proton NMR fingerprints has been undertaken. Several biomarkers in close relation to nitrogen supply could be highlighted by supervised data mining and identified by means of their accurate mass, fragmentation pattern and proton NMR spectra.