PDO (Protected Designation of Origin): Geographical characterization of Tuscan extra virgin olive oils using high-field H-1 NMR spectroscopy

High-field H-1 Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) was used to analyze 42 extr a virgin olive oils from three different zones in Tuscany ("Seggiano", "Col line Lucchesi" and "Colline di Arezzo"), in order to evaluate if this techn ique can be used to determine the geographical origin of olive oil. Selecte d resonance intensities obtained from H-1 NMR spectra were submitted to two different methods of multivariate statistical analysis: Cluster Analysis a nd Discriminant Analysis. Extra virgin olive oils of the same geographical area were clearly grouped, indicating that multivariate statistical analysi s applied to H-1 NMR data may be a way to check the Protected Designation o f Origin (P.D.O.).