Due to marketing recommendations, white wines are often bottled in flint glass to improve aesthetics and showcase wine color. Although this practice is known to cause a wine fault, the influence of light on the fruity and flowery aromatic profile of wine is unknown. The aim of this study was to investigate the changes to the white wine volatilome under typical supermarket shelf conditions, using 1,052 bottles of 24 white wines. After only 7 d of shelf life in flint glass bottles, a dramatic loss in terpenes (10 to 30%) and norisoprenoids (30 to 70%) was recorded, whereas colored glass bottles did not evidence such behavior even after 50 d, and darkness preserved the wine's fruity and flowery aromatic integrity. We also proposed an alternative mechanism for the insurgence of the lightstrike off-odor, which takes the varietal aroma loss into account. In light of this understanding of the flint glass negative impact on white wine aroma identity and sensorial character, this packaging should be strongly discouraged. The same findings should be valid for a wide range of several daily consumed foodstuff where transparent packaging is used.
Keywords: GC×GC-Tof-MS; lightstrike; metabolomics; off-odor; wine faults.