Feasible efforts have been made to mimic the human gustatory system through an "artificial tongue". This device comprises an array of sensing units that is able to differentiate tastes with a higher sensitivity than the biological system. Experimental results indicate that when the data generated by such sensing units are handled by artificial neural networks, this "artificial tongue" can successfully discriminate wines of different winemakers, vintage and grapes, as well as different brands of mineral water, distilled water and Milli-Q water. The accuracy achieved by the experiments suggests that the sensing units may be used to detect abnormal chemical substances in a production line or even set a new approach to control quality standards in food industry.