Does bottle color protect red wine from photo‐oxidation?

Abstract

Even if bottled red wines have an extended shelf life, they undergo several chemical changes, and producers are well aware of the importance of the packaging. However, there is a lack of research into the effect of light on their composition. Therefore, the storage conditions of a Sangiovese wines with respect to artificial light exposure (present/absent) and bottle color (transparent, brown, and green) were investigated. Thirty‐five chemical characteristics (physicochemical, UV‐VIS indexes, and volatile compounds) were recorded after 6 months of storage. Light exposure caused significant differences in total SO2 and a shift from red to yellow/orange color. For wines kept in transparent bottles, total red pigments, total phenol index, monomeric anthocyanins, copigmentation, chemical age, and some volatile compounds showed significant differences, depending on whether it was exposed to light or not. On the contrary, light exposure was found not significant for the wine stored in green and brown bottles, Finally, an overall increase in variability was found for light‐exposed wine in transparent bottles which could be considered, in itself, a measure of lack of quality.

Effects of Light Exposure, Bottle Colour and Storage Temperature on the Quality of Malvasia delle Lipari Sweet Wine

“…The a* value was stable for the first 150 days to increase in samples at 35 • C and 40 • C. From 150 to 180 days, an increase was also monitored in MdL stored at 30 • C, exceeding the values of all the other samples. As previously reported, an increase in color parameters is linked to light-exposed samples [43]. Different letters within the same parameter and main factor show significant differences (LSD test, p ≤ 0.05).…”

“…Hue (h), the attribute of appearance by which a color is identified according to its resemblance to red, green, yellow or blue, slightly decreases from 30 to 90 days. An increase in the yellow color (b*) and hue is usually associated with wine aging, as well as a decrease in a*, measured in light-exposed samples [43].…”

“…As concerns the activation energy (Table 7), the lowest value was determined for HMF (11.7 kJ mol −1 ), and the highest, about 5.7-fold higher than HMF, for 2F formation (66.4 kJ mol −1 ), suggesting that a small increase of temperature induced a fast increase of the formation of these compounds, mostly for HMF. In recent years, much research has been focused on the influence of light exposure to wine composition, in particular, on white wine, but also on red wine [41,43]. The phenomenon of light-induced off-flavors in wine, called "light-struck taste" (LST) [40,46], together with bottle color, storage condition and temperature effect were studied to improve the quality maintenance of wine during its storage [40,43,[47][48][49].…”

The Impact Packaging Type Has on the Flavor of Wine

“…During the aging process, the wine's composition is altered through a number of complex chemical reactions, and some chemical classes such as phenolics (anthocyanins, flavan-3-ols, flavonols, hydroxycinnamic acid) and volatile organic compounds (esters, fusel alcohols, aldehydes, ketones, acids, etc.) can result in noticeable changes to the sensory and physical characteristics of final product [75].…”

Qualitative effects of the addition of withered grapes to a freshly produced red wine: the traditional governo all'uso toscano practice

“…In wine, both are related to the greenery tone (Pisarnitskii 2001) and are not considered to be particularly positive. 1-Hexanol is described as 'ethereal, fusel oil, fruity, alcoholic, sweet and green' and, in Sangiovese wines, has been reported at a concentration ranging from <1 mg/kg (Guerrini et al 2018) to >10 mg/kg (Guerrini et al 2019). Z-3-Hexen-1-ol is a 'green leaf' volatile (Jaeger et al 2010).…”