Geographic origins and compositions of virgin olive oils determinated by chemometric analysis of NIR spectra O. Galtier, N. Dupuy , Y. Le Dreau, D. Ollivier, C. Pinatel, J. Kister, J. Artaud

• Published in: Analytica chimica acta 2007-07, Vol.595 (1-2), p.136-144
• Main Authors: Galtier, O, Dupuy, N, Le Dreau, Y, Ollivier, D, Pinatel, C, Kister, J, Artaud, J
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• ISSN: 0003-2670
• DOI: 10.1016/j.aca.2007.02.033

The authentication of virgin olive oil samples requires usually the use of sophisticated and time consuming analytical techniques. There is a need for fast and simple analytical techniques for the objective of a quality control methodology. Virgin olive oils present characteristic NIR spectra. Chemometric treatment of MR spectra was assessed for the quantification of fatty acids and triacylglycerols in virgin olive oil samples (n = 125) and for their classification (PLS 1-DA) into five very geographically closed registered designations of origin (RDOs) of French virgin olive oils ('Aix-en-Provence', 'Haute-Provence', 'Nice', 'Nyons' and 'Vallee des B aux'). The spectroscopic interpretation of regression vectors showed that each RDO was correlated to one or two specific components of virgin olive oils according to their cultivar compositions. The results were quite satisfactory, in spite of the similarity of cultivar compositions between two denominations of origin ('Aix-en-Provence' and 'Vallee des Baux'). Chemometric treatments of MR spectra allow us to obtain similar results than those obtained by time consuming analytical techniques such as GC and HPLC, and constitute a help fast and robust for authentication of those French virgin olive oils.