Techniques for Dealcoholization of Wines: Their Impact on Wine Phenolic Composition, Volatile Composition, and Sensory Characteristics

Abstract

The attention of some winemakers and researchers over the past years has been drawn towards the partial or total dealcoholization of wines and alcoholic beverages due to trends in wine styles, and the effect of climate change on wine alcohol content. To achieve this, different techniques have been used at the various stages of winemaking, among which the physical dealcoholization techniques, particularly membrane separation (nanofiltration, reverse osmosis, evaporative perstraction, and pervaporation) and thermal distillation (vacuum distillation and spinning cone column), have shown promising results and hence are being used for commercial production. However, the removal of alcohol by these techniques can cause changes in color and losses of desirable volatile aroma compounds, which can subsequently affect the sensory quality and acceptability of the wine by consumers. Aside from the removal of ethanol, other factors such as the ethanol concentration, the kind of alcohol removal technique, the retention properties of the wine non-volatile matrix, and the chemical-physical properties of the aroma compounds can influence changes in the wine sensory quality during dealcoholization. This review highlights and summarizes some of the techniques for wine dealcoholization and their impact on wine quality to help winemakers in choosing the best technique to limit adverse effects in dealcoholized wines and to help meet the needs and acceptance among different targeted consumers such as younger people, pregnant women, drivers, and teetotalers.

Comparison between Membrane and Thermal Dealcoholization Methods: Their Impact on the Chemical Parameters, Volatile Composition, and Sensory Characteristics of Wines

“…Partial dealcoholization (up to 2% v/v) has become another practice in oenology [11]. Dealcoholization methods generate changes in the organoleptic properties of wines (even membrane methods cause compositional changes) that go beyond alcohol extraction [12][13][14][15][16][17]. This makes the resulting wines have a different flavor and aroma.…”

“…Dealcoholization methods such as osmotic distillation [16,19,24], reverse osmosis [23,[25][26][27][28], pervaporation [29,30], vacuum distillation [13,14,31], and the spinning cone column [26,32] are most commonly used because they can partially or completely reduce the alcohol content (<0.5% v/v) of wines and beverages [15,17,33,34]. Dealcoholization methods, especially reverse osmosis and vacuum distillation, have been shown to have minimal impact on wine aroma and sensory quality after dealcoholization [35,36].…”

Wine Faults: State of Knowledge in Reductive Aromas, Oxidation and Atypical Aging, Prevention, and Correction Methods

“…The grape phenolic composition is affected by several factors such as grape variety, ripening stage, climate, soil, place of growing, and vine cultivation. Winemaking technologies, such as maceration time, temperature, the intensity of pressing, yeast, and SO 2 -doses, together with enological practices and aging, also modify the phenolic content in wine [ 85 , 86 ]. Usually, white wines are made without aeration in order to avoid extensive contact with oxygen, preventing browning of the wine and deterioration of the overall quality.…”

Membrane Dialysis for Partial Dealcoholization of White Wines

“…It has been successfully applied for alcohol reduction of beers [ 36 ]. Nevertheless, to the best of our knowledge, no study has been done to apply Dialysis to wine dealcoholization [ 37 ].…”