The qualitative perceptual interactions in three binary mixtures of wine odorants were studied: isoamyl acetate (fruity note)/whisky lactone (woody note), ethyl butyrate (fruity note)/whisky lactone (woody note) and ethyl butyrate (fruity note)/guaiacol (woody note). For each binary mixture, the perceived quality and intensity of 24 stimuli (four supra-threshold concentration levels of each of the two compounds and their 16 possible combinations) were evaluated in five replications by a trained panel of 13 subjects. The application of the Olsson predictive model for odour intensity and quality perception gave quite a good estimation of the evolution of single component identification in the mixture when the intensity proportion of unmixed components varied. However, this model was unable to account for the odour quality dominance in mixtures of iso-intense components. An alternative linear logistic model was proposed to study the qualitative dominance of the woody note in the three mixtures when the perceived intensities of each unmixed compound were equal.

The quantitative olfactory interactions in three binary mixtures of wine aroma compounds were studied. For the first two mixtures, whisky lactone (woody note) was mixed separately with two esters (fruity note), ethyl butyrate and isoamyl acetate. For the third mixture, guaiacol (woody note) was mixed with ethyl butyrate (fruity note). Perceived odour intensity of 24 stimuli (four supra-threshold concentration levels of two compounds and the respective 16 mixtures) were evaluated in five replications, by a trained panel of 13 subjects. The results showed that for the three binary mixtures studied, quantitative perceptual interactions were non-level independent, non-symmetrical, and reached the compromise level of hypo-addition. The experimental data highlighted that generally mixtures with high whisky lactone levels led to the compromise level of mixture intensity perception, whereas mixtures with high fruity note intensity proportions did not. A tendency to hyper-addition was observed in iso-intense mixtures only at the lowest intensity level.

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