Leading Spanish Wine Testing Laboratory Announces New NMR Authentication Service
La Rioja, SPAIN – March 28, 2022 – Estación Enológica de Haro (EEH), a public and governmental laboratory situated in the major wine growing region La Rioja, Spain, announces its new wine analysis service for public and private organizations in the oenological sector.
The first of its kind to be provided by a laboratory in Spain, the service uses Bruker’s nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy to identify origin, variety, and authenticity of wine throughout the supply chain. This detailed analysis helps wine producers, importers and distributors detect and prevent the most common types of wine fraud by verifying wine identity. EEH will offer three levels of analysis: a full NMR wine certification (quantitative and qualitative analysis) including appellations and country of origin and grape variety, a quantitative wine report by NMR including 52 quality parameters, and confirmation of identity including a benchmark comparison.
Spain’s wine export market is valued at €2.63 billion and, as a premium product, it is vulnerable to many types of economically motivated fraud (EMF). As consumers increasingly demand authenticity and transparency of origin in their food and drinks, the new NMR analysis service helps growers and importers to protect their brand reputation, safeguard consumer trust and maintain product value.
NMR is a highly reproducible analytical technique that helps complete the chain of authenticity in high-end wine supply chains by providing a ‘fingerprint’ of a sample. Each fingerprint contains 52 parameters to allow the creation of robust databases, providing a reference for all molecular constituents. Because a large number of relevant parameters can be analyzed in a single run, the cost per sample is low compared to conventional analyses, where multiple analytical techniques are needed.
EEH has used Bruker’s Wine-Profiling™ module on the NMR FoodScreener® platform to analyze wine samples since 2015. The specialist lab evaluates 25,000 samples and conducts around 263,000 analyses every year using different methods and techniques, which include NMR.
The system offers a fully automated technique that helps tackle wine fraud. Its intuitive software interface and analytical reports require no prior NMR knowledge on the part of the user. Bruker is also working with EEH to further grow the database of wines, running samples from Spain as well as with France, Italy, and Hungary, to create baselines along Europe, preventing economical and quality fraud.
Dr. Elena Meléndez Álvarez, Director and Head of Quality Control at EEH
Victor García Pidal, Director General at Bruker Española S.A. said: “The versatility of NMR techniques and equipment has allowed us to adapt this method specifically to the needs of grape growers, wine producers, packers, distributors, and exporters. This may be for self-monitoring, fraud control or developing improvements to the wine‑making process. Bruker is proud to be working together with EEH in such a high value market to protect the reputation of Spain’s winemakers and keep consumer trust in the products and suppliers.”
The NMR analyses provided by EEH are available for white wines from the Spanish regions of Rioja, Rais Baixas, Rueda, and Valencia; red wines from the regions of Rioja, Navarra, Ribera de Duero, Ribera de Guadiana, and Valencia; and rosé wines from Rioja, as well as relevant Spanish varieties such as Tempranillo, Garnacha Tinta, Monastrell, Verdejo, Viura and Albariño.
For more information about the Bruker Wine-Profiling 4.0 module, please click here.
About Estación Enológica de Haro (EEH)
EEH, established in 1892, has been decisive in the key moments of Rioja viniculture. Since the eighties, its work has focused on the analysis of wines, to be at the forefront and adapting to the needs arising in the sector and with the aim of giving a better service to its customers. EEH has a wide range of analyzes, accredited under Norm ISO17025, highlighting within its work the performance of quality controls for Spanish appellations, and advice and support to wineries for the export of wines.
About Bruker Corporation
Bruker is enabling scientists to make breakthrough discoveries and develop new applications that improve the quality of human life. Bruker’s high performance scientific instruments and high value analytical and diagnostic solutions enable scientists to explore life and materials at molecular, cellular and microscopic levels. In close cooperation with our customers, Bruker is enabling innovation, improved productivity and customer success in life science molecular and cell biology research, in applied and pharma applications, in microscopy and nanoanalysis, as well as in industrial applications. Bruker offers differentiated, high-value life science and diagnostics systems and solutions in preclinical imaging, clinical phenomics research, proteomics and multiomics, spatial and single-cell biology, functional structural and condensate biology, as well as in clinical microbiology and molecular diagnostics. For more information, please visit: www.bruker.com.
Customer Contact
Victor Pidal
Director General
Bruker Española S.A.
Victor.Pidal@bruker.com
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Thorsten Thiel, Ph. D.
VP of Group Marketing
Bruker BioSpin Group
+49 (721) 5161–6500
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