Glutathione content evolution during spontaneous alcoholic fermentations of Sangiovese grapes

An intelligent packaging might, among others, provide information and allow monitoring of the quality of the packed product or its surrounding environment. A recent project on micro-flow wine bottles closed with aluminium screw cap and tightness liner, highlighted the importance of monitoring the internal overpressure continuously, in real-time and at least for 72 hours, since the internal pressure on the tightness liner and the micro-flow are related. Real-time and continuous measurements are not the standard methods of measurement of the overpressure, yet. The most used equipment for the determination of the pressure in wine bottle is the aphrometer, a destructive device that supplies a single value of pressure.

The occurrence of faults and taints in wine, such as those caused by microbial spoilage or various taints, have resulted in significant financial losses to wine producers. The wine industry commits significant financial resources towards fining and taint removal processes each year. Fining involves the addition of one or more adsorptive substrates to juice or wine to bind certain components, thus reducing their concentration [1]. However, these processes are often not selective and can also remove desirable flavour and aroma compounds.

Abstract In this work the effects of early leaf removal performed manually at preflowering phenological stage, on the volatile composition of Tempranillo (Vitis vinifera L.) wines were studied. From 2009-2011 vintages 34 wine volatile compounds were identified and quantified by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) where early leaf removal only modified 25 of them. The total C6 compounds, acetates and volatiles acids (with exception of isobutyric acid) were affected by defoliation, whereas alcohols and esters showed a minor effect. Furthermore the vintage effect also was shown.

In general, there is a well-established lexicon related to wine aroma and taste properties; however mouth-feel-related vocabulary usually includes heterogeneous, multimodal and personalized terms. Gawel et al.
(2000) published a wheel related to mouthfeel properties of red wine. However, its use in scientific publications has been limited. The authors accepted that the approach had certain limitations as it included redundant and terms with hedonic tone and some others were absent. It is of high interest to generate a mouth-feel lexicon and finding the chemical compound or group of compounds responsible for such properties in red wine. In the present work a chemical fractionation method has been developed.

Contribution Foam is the characteristic that differentiates sparkling wines from still wines, being the first sensory attribute that tasters and consumers perceive and that determines the final quality of sparkling wines [1]. The foaming properties mainly depend on the chemical composition of wines [2-3], and different factors involved in wine composition will have an effect on foam quality. In Spain, the sparkling wine market focuses on the production of white and rosé sparkling wine, with very low production of red sparkling wines. However, this type of wines is elaborated in countries like Australia, South-Africa, Argentina, Italy or Portugal, with a great acceptance by consumers. No studies on the foaming characteristics of red sparkling wines have been found.