ISSN print edition: 0366-6352 ISSN electronic edition: 1336-9075 Registr. No.: MK SR 9/7 Published monthly

Interdisciplinary study on pottery experimentally impregnated with wine

Eugenia Dumitra Teodor, Georgiana Ileana Badea, Andreia Alecu, Larisa Calu, and Gabriel Lucian Radu

Centre of Bioanalysis, National Institute for Biological Sciences, 296 Spl. Independentei, Bucharest, 060031, Romania

E-mail: truicageorgiana@yahoo.com

Abstract: Experimentally developed ceramic pots, with two different sizes of grain, were half-filled with wine and subjected to thermal alteration at constant elevated temperature ((60 ± 2)°C) in darkness for 12 weeks. This work sought to characterise the samples thereby obtained from chemical and mineralogical perspectives using scanning electron microscopy and an energy-dispersive X-ray microanalysis system (SEM-EDX), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and capillary electrophoresis (CE) with UV detection as an alternative to chromatographic methods, due to its good resolution, automation, simplicity, high speed, low consumption of chemicals and short time required for sample preparation. The capillary electrophoresis method was used for the detection of five wine biomarkers: succinic acid, malic acid, tartaric acid, citric acid and lactic acid. In general, it was noted that the fine-grained ceramic assortment retained the organic material better than the coarser-grained ceramics. An interesting observation derived from this study was that not only could tartaric acid be considered as a biomarker for wine residues in archaeological pottery, but malic acid could also act similarly for white wine and lactic acid for red wine.

Keywords: short-chain organic acids – wine – CE – FTIR – SEM-EDX – experimental archaeology

Full paper is available at www.springerlink.com.

DOI: 10.2478/s11696-014-0559-1

Chemical Papers 68 (8) 1022–1029 (2014)