Abstract:

A total of 21 samples of Chinese red wines of differen ages and from different growing regions were analyzed for
chemical components such as totoal phenolic compounds and tannins as well as color parameters. Correlation analysis and
principal component analysis (PCA) were adopted to explore the correlation between chemical components and color parameters
and identify chemcial components mainly responsible for considerable differences in the quality of red wine. We found that color
depth of red wine was significantly correlated with the contents of totoal phenolic compounds, tartaric acid esters, flavanol and
total athocyanins and had a negative correlation with CIELab a* value. Total athocyanin content was significantly correlated with
L* and b* values and its correlation with color tone was significantly negative. Furthermore, these color parameters of red wine
samples presented evidently different PCA distributions depending upon their age and growing area.

Key words: dry red wine, Color related parameters, CIELab colorparameters