Abstract: In order to explore the effect of natural aging process on aroma components in loquat wine, headspace solid phase microextraction coupled to gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (HS-SPME-GC-MS) was used to analyze the aroma components in original and naturally aged samples of loquat wine. Quantification was performed by the area normalization method. The results indicated that 27 aroma components were identified in wine samples aged for 0, 3, 6, 9 months, of which 19 such as 1-hexanol, n-heptanol, 1-octanol and so on were found in all of the four samples and 8 such as 1-nonanol, amyl acetate, ethyl caprylate and otherwise were the predominant compounds. At the four aging stages, esters were the most predominant aroma components, followed by alcohols, acids, terpenoids and aldehydes, and the types of aroma components and major aroma components and their relative contents revealed differences. The relative contents of alcohols and aldehydes exhibited a downward trend, and of esters, acids and terpenoids an upward trend. Difference aroma composition provided loquat wine with different aroma performance at different aging stages.

Key words: loquat, aging, aroma, HS-SPME, GC-MS