The traceability of foodstuffs is now a relevant aspect of the food market. Scientific research has been devoted to addressing this issue by developing analytical protocols in order to find the link between soil and food items. In this view, chemical parameters that can act as soil markers are being sought. In this work, the role of rare earth elements (REEs) as geochemical markers in the traceability of red wine is discussed. The REE distribution in samples from each step of the wine making process of Primitivo wine (produced in Southern Italy) was determined using the highly sensitive inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) technique. Samples analyzed include grapes, must, and wine samples after every step in the vinification process. The resulting data were compared to the REE distribution in the soil, revealing that the soil fingerprint is maintained in the intermediate products up to and including grape must. Fractionation occurs thereafter as a consequence of further external interventions, which tends to modify the REE profile.

This work proposes a sensory method to verify the ‘cork taint’ defect in food and beverages. This off-flavour has considerable economic impact in wine but occasionally can occur in other food and beverages. In wine, 2,4,6-trichloroanisole (TCA) is generally considered to be the main compound responsible for this taint. It is an easily recognized compound because of its low sensorial threshold, and it is described as a mouldy and damp cardboard odour. This sensory method, developed in wine, consists of specific panel training to recognize TCA in a series of olfactory tests. The effectiveness of the panel was tested with contaminated wines in which the TCA content had been previously determined by Solid Phase Microextraction-Gas Chromatography Mass Spectrometry (SPME-GC/MS) analysis. This sensory method is useful to train a panel able to recognize the ‘cork taint’ defect in different situations (legal appraisals or quality assurance systems). The use of a reliable sensory assay can reduce the number of chemical analyses and the proposed method can be applied to other beverages such as beer. Copyright © 2015 The Institute of Brewing & Distilling

The polyphenolic composition and antioxidant activity of grape seeds, as byproducts of red winemaking, depend on various factors, such as grape cultivar, vintage effect, grape maturity and winemaking methods. In the present work, the influence of the maceration length on the polyphenolic and antioxidant characteristics of the seeds of four Italian red grape cultivars (‘Barbera’, ‘Grignolino’, ‘Nebbiolo’, and ‘Uvalino’), sampled from the fermentation tanks after short (two days) and medium-long (7–21 days) macerations, was studied with spectrophotometric methods, high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC), and three different antioxidant assays (2,2′-azino-bis-3-ethylbenzothiazoline-6-sulfonic acid (ABTS), ferric reducing antioxidant power (FRAP) and 2,2 diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH)). The total polyphenolic content (gallic acid equivalent (GAE)) of the seeds sampled after short macerations ranged between 24.5 and 60.1 mg/g dry weight (DW), and it dropped to 20.0–37.5 mg/g DW after medium-long macerations. The polyphenolic profile of the shortly macerated seeds was related to the varietal characteristics, while, after longer macerations, the influence of the maceration length prevailed on the cultivar effect. The multiple in vitro antioxidant activity tests (ABTS, FRAP and DPPH), although based on different mechanisms capable of highlighting behavioral differences between the different polyphenolic compounds, were highly correlated with each other and with the polyphenolic parameters; the qualitative differences between the matrices in the polyphenolic profile were probably less important than the quantitative differences in the polyphenolic content. The relations with the polyphenolic content were linear, except for the Efficient Concentration (EC₂₀) parameter, whose relation was better described by a hyperbolic equation.

This study correlates the antioxidant composition profiles and the overall antioxidant capacities of 36 Italian red wine samples. The samples were fully characterized by chromatographic and spectrophotometric techniques. The overall antioxidant capacity was determined by titrating a solution of the semistable free radical DPPH (1,1-diphenyl-2-picrylhydrazyl) with each wine sample followed by Electron Paramagnetic Resonance (EPR) spectroscopy and then measuring the resulting decrease in DPPH-signal. The antioxidant activities of the samples were expressed as (+)-catechin equivalents and related to their antioxidant composition profiles. Samples with a high polyphenol content showed a high DPPH scavenging ability as well. Seven well-defined groups, mainly constituted by wines coming from the same cultivar, were evidenced by PCA analysis. Alcohol content and pH did not influence the wine DPPH scavenging ability. The most important variables contributing to the wines’ antioxidant power are total flavonoid, total phenol, and proanthocyanidin indices together with fertaric acid,trans-caftaric acid,trans-coutaric acid, and both quercetin glucoside and quercetin glucuronide. EPR is demonstrated to be faster than the other analytical methods (spectrophotometric and chromatographic analyses) to determine the wine overall antioxidant activity.