Effect of the Microwave Irradiated Treatment on the Wine Sensory Properties

Abstract

An instantaneous microwave irradiation method was applied to treat young dry red wine in order to accelerate the desired aging process during storing wine for the improvement of its taste quality. Effects of the microwave power and irradiation duration on the wine sensory property were investigated. Experimental results showed that microwave treatment had a significant effect on taste and total score, but no obvious effect was found on appearance, fragrance, fragrance duration and overall assessment. The influence of irradiation duration was significant on appearance, fragrance and total score, while not obvious on other indexes. The optimum conditions were obtained with microwave power 420 W and irradiation duration 5 min, and the result was corresponding to the content of chemical constituents of treated wine.

Microwave irradiation: impacts on physicochemical properties of red wine

“…The lengthiness of aging process results in high cost, large quantities of oak barrels occupied, potential microbial contamination, and long cycle for the wine production. To accelerate the aging process and shorten the production cycle of wine, some innovative physical aging technologies have been studied, such as ultrasound, pulsed electric fields, gamma radiation, high pressure (Tao et al, 2014), micro-oxygenated (Alamo-Sanza et al, 2019), wood chips aging (Del Alamo Sanza & Nevares Domínguez, 2006;Gortzi et al, 2013), and microwave aging (Zheng et al, 2011), that these methods in laboratory try to short the vinification time and effectively promote taste quality of the fresh wine. However, there is still a long way to go for the application of these new artificial technologies in the actual production of red wine, making the process of wine aging becomes more efficient and more economical.…”

“…The existence of free radicals in winemaking process makes changes even more complicated during aging red wine (Elias et al, 2009), which may shorten the aging duration. Microwave aging wine may benefit to re-combination of insoluble molecules and speeding up the alcoholization process (Elias et al, 2009), improve wine sensory properties (Zheng et al, 2011), advantage to aging process (C. Li et al, 2010), and accelerate certain necessary chemical reactions for the wine aging process (Lin & Lin, 2000). On the other hand, potential microbial contamination frequently occurred during wine aging process, SO 2 was added into the must or vats to controlled microbial contamination.…”

Alternative Methods to SO2 for Microbiological Stabilization of Wine

“…The friction generated by the resistance offered by the solution to the migration of ions, under the changing electric field, and the realignment of polar molecules with the rapidly changing MW electromagnetic field, transform MW energy into heat (Clodoveo et al, 2016). The application of MW in winemaking has been studied in recent years, with the main purpose of accelerating the extraction of phenolic compounds in red winemaking (Carew, Gill, Close, & Dambergs, 2014) and also to accelerate their evolution in young red wine (Zheng, Liu, Huo, & Li, 2011). MW-assisted maceration of Pinot noir grapes allowed to reduce maceration time, usually very long for this grape variety, due to the peculiar phenolic composition (low anthocyanin content, all of which is in the less-stable nonacylated form, low skin-to-seed tannin ratio, and low tannin extractability) (Carew et al, 2014).…”

“…At present, neither studies on the application of MW on white musts, nor studies on their application as antimicrobial treatment on finished wine have been conducted. In this latter case, microwave heating could have a negative effect on sensory quality (appearance, odor, taste), as suggested by results obtained on low-temperature (<40°C) MW treatment (Zheng et al, 2011). MW was also tested for sanitizing wine vessels and barrels, by means of prototypical equipment, which exploits high-frequency MW to reduce microbial populations (González-Arenzana et al, 2013).…”

Microwave‐induced free radicals production in red wine and model wine by electron paramagnetic resonance spin trapping

“…high-frequency electromagnetic field, which was conducive to the recombination of insoluble molecules and accelerated the aging processing (Zheng et al, 2011). On the other hand, liquid red wine was rich in polar molecules and functional groups, which could absorb microwave energy and convert it into volume heat, which was conducive to the aging processing (Li et al, 2010).…”