Progress in Beverages Authentication by the Application of Analytical Techniques and Chemometrics

Food authentication is the process that verifies that a food complies with its label description. This may include, among others, the origin (species, geographical, or genetic), production method (conventional, organic, traditional procedures), or processing technologies. In recent years, the issues of food authenticity have received special attention from both producers and consumers. Organizations that set standards for and control the origin of ingredients and the production process have appeared all over the world. The production of goods according to these standardized procedures normally results in better products and is rewarded with higher prices in the market. Unfortunately, these financial benefits attract the production of counterfeit food and illegal food trades. Beverages can be subject to many fraudulent practices. In recent years, several papers have investigated the authenticity of fruit juices, teas, coffees, and vinegars, but wines and spirits remain the most studied products, due to their popularity and high cost. A measure of the authenticity of beverages most often includes proving the presence/absence of adulterants, or verifying geographical or cultivar origin by comparison with known and reliable samples. Many analytical methods (NMR; DNA fingerprint, isotopic ratio, elemental analysis, sensory analysis, etc.) have been employed in the last decades in order to verify the label declarations. Recent and most promising approaches involve the combination of information from different analytical techniques by the use of multivariate and multiway chemometrics in order to build more reliable classification and prediction models. In view of the growing interest in this topic, this paper reviews the latest techniques and research trends in beverage authentication and characterization.