Differentiation of Czech wines using multielement composition – A comparison with vineyard soil

Chemical compositions of wines and soil extracts from six viticulture areas of the Czech Republic were examined using statistical multivariate analyses – principal component analysis, factor and cluster analysis. In the group of the 27 studied elements determined by ICP-MS and AAS, only Mg exhibits a statistically significant dependence between its concentration in Mehlich’s soil extract and in wine. Contents of lithophile elements, such as Mg, Mn, Cs, Ba and Sr, in wines are mutually dependent. Some of these lithophile elements exhibit a positive correlation with the elements with the lowest concentration (e.g., Ag and Tl). The most probable source of these lithophile elements was determined to be the vineyard soil and dust. Some of the lithophile biogenic elements show negative correlations with elements from anthropogenic contamination: K is correlated with Pb; Mg and Mn are correlated with V. It is likely that these elements exhibit antagonistic competition with each other in the vine. A strong positive correlation between Cu and As in wines indicates the origin of both elements in inorganic pesticides employed in viticulture. Both wine and soil samples are very well clustered according to their locality. However, the clustering of wines did not follow clustering of soils and it is possible that major and trace element fingerprints of wines reflect soil chemistry, pollution and wine manufacturing practices by individual producers.