Metal content of Spanish red wines from certified denomination of origin

Metal content for Ribera del Duero, Rioja, Valdepenas, and La Mancha Spanis h DOC wines has been experimentally determined in order to evaluate the pot ential for metals to characterize, classify and differentiate one DOC from another. Seven metals were analyzed: K, Mg, Na, Ca, Cu, Fe and Zn. Experimental data were subjected to anova and pattern recognition technique s such as cluster and linear discriminant analyses: Two metal clusters were found with edaphic and enological significance, respectively. Sodium was f ound to be the metal with the highest variability, therefore, the best of t he metals studied for DOC wine differentiation.