CHARACTERIZING SOME EUROPEAN OLIVE OIL VARIETIES BY VOLATILES USING STATISTICAL TOOLS

The volatile aroma composition of five virgin olive oil varieties corr esponding to three different Mediterranean countries were studied. Che mical data of 63 compounds quantified by a dynamic headspace gas-chrom atographic method were treated by Analysis of Variance (ANOVA), Stepwi se Linear Discriminant Analysis (SLDA) and Factor Analysis (FA) in ord er to achieve a possible characterization. Statistical methodology was established to reduce the initial number of compounds to the 6 most i mportant in discriminating between these varieties.