Headspace Solid-Phase Microextraction: A Useful and Quick Tool for the Traceability and Quality Assessment of Wine Cork Stoppers

Natural cork remains a favored option for sealing high-quality wine bottles, despite its high cost wineries. The industry faces the challenge of certifying quality and traceability these corks, with physical–chemical characterization being valuable tool in establishing parameters. While taint compounds must be absent or low concentrations, volatile fraction contains numerous that, even small amounts, can impact wine’s final aroma. Moreover, are indicative geographical origin planks used to make stoppers. In this work, total 68 (alkanes, terpenes, benzenic compounds, aldehydes, ketones, acids, esters, alcohols furanic pyranic compounds) from natural corks different qualities origins were identified, using fast sensitive technique: headspace solid-phase microextraction coupled gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (HS-SPME-GC-MS). Based on it was possible establish differences between origins, although no discernible detected samples differing visual qualities, as is subjective parameter largely dependent cork’s external appearance. These findings show that analysis composition via HS-SPME-GC-MS quick tracking their selecting most appropriate parameters at each stage processing minimize increase unwanted compounds.