EurekAlert -- You don’t need a wine expert to identify a ’74 Pinot Noir from Burgundy – a handheld “electronic tongue” devised by European scientists will tell you the grape variety and vintage at the press of a button. Designed for quality control in the field, the device is made up of six sensors which detect substances characteristic of a certain wine variety. Components such as acid, sugar and alcohol can be measured by this detection, and from these parameters it can determine the age and variety of the wine. The tongue was invented by Cecilia Jiménez-Jorquera and colleagues from the Barcelona Institute of Microelectronics, Spain, and is reported in the Royal Society of Chemistry journal The Analyst.
