Abstract
The fresh mushrooms off-flavor (FMOff) has been appearing in wines since the 2000 s; the C8 compounds, 1-octen-3-one, 1-octen-3-ol and 3-octanol are involved in this specific taint, yet they alone do not fully explain its occurrence. The objective of this work was to identify by GC–MS new FMOff markers in contaminated matrices, to correlate compound levels with wine sensory characterization and to determine the sensory attributes of 1-hydroxyoctan-3-one, a new candidate involved in FMOff. In practice, grape musts were artificially contaminated with Crustomyces subabruptus, and fermented to obtain tainted wines. GC–MS analysis of contaminated musts and wines revealed the presence of 1-hydroxyoctan-3-one only in contaminated musts, and not in the healthy control. In a selection of 16 wines affected by FMOff, the level of 1-hydroxyoctan-3-one correlated significantly (r2 = 0.86) with sensory analysis scores. Finally, 1-hydroxyoctan-3-one was synthesized and found to generate a fresh mushroom aroma in a wine matrix.