Isotopic and elemental characterisation of Slovenian apple juice according to geographical origin: Preliminary results

This study examined the applicability of stable isotope and multi-element data for determining the geographical origin of fresh apple juices. Samples included three apple cultivars (Idared, Golden Delicious and Topaz) harvested in 2011 and 2012 from five different geographical regions of Slovenia. Regional discrimination of the juice samples was most successful when using linear discriminant analysis (LDA) and taking into account the following parameters: δ2H and δ18O content of juice water; δ15N and δ13C content of the pulp, (D/H)I and (D/H)II in ethanol and the concentration of S, Cl, Fe, Cu, Zn and Sr. Overall prediction ability was 83.9%. The factors that best distinguished the different types of cultivar were the δ2H and δ18O content of fruit juice water; the δ13C and (D/H)I content of ethanol; and the concentration of S, Mg, K, Cu, and Ti. Prediction ability, taking into account all ten parameters, was 75.8%.