Monitoring the effects and side-effects on wine colour and flavonoid composition of the combined post-fermentative additions of seeds and mannoproteins

Abstract

One of the main consequences of the advancement of harvest date associated to global climate change is that the phenolic maturity of grapes can be delayed in relation to their technological maturity. As a consequence, wines made from these grapes can be poor in phenolic compounds or possess an unbalanced phenolic composition, affecting their global quality. The combined post-fermentative addition of seeds and an astringency-modulator mannoprotein (MP) might be a potential strategy to solve this problem, since seeds might supply flavanols and improve wine chemical stability and the mannoprotein might modulate the changes induced in astringency by the addition of seeds and improve wine colloidal stability. The present study aimed at monitoring at different moments of winemaking and ageing the effects and side-effects of this combined strategy on the detailed flavanol, flavonol and anthocyanin compositions and on colour of wines made from Syrah grapes. Seeds were obtained from Pedro Ximénez overripe grapes. Flavanol composition and flavonol and anthocyanin compositions were determined by HPLC-MSⁿ-MRM and HPLC-DAD-MSⁿ analyses, respectively. Colour changes caused by these additions were studied from CIELAB parameters as well as the ability of these techniques to protect colour from bleaching agents, such as SO₂. In general, the addition of seeds initially increased the levels of flavanols and anthocyanins. However, during bottle ageing a reduction in the levels of flavanols, flavonols and anthocyanins could be observed in seed treated wines, which might be related to the greater formation of flavanol aggregates associated with greater levels of flavanols. This effect was partially solved for most of the flavonoids studied with the additional MP treatment. Treated and control wines showed colour differences that were visible to human eye, although they were reduced over time. At the end of the study, treated wines showed colour parameters corresponding to younger wines than those observed in control wines. A greater resistance against SO₂ bleaching was also observed in treated wines, which can be mainly associated to the greater percentages of polymeric pigments caused by seed treatment and to the improvement of the colloidal stability of SO₂-resistant pigments caused by the addition of the MP.

Keywords: Anthocyanins; CIELAB; Colloidal stability; Flavanols; Flavonols; Grape seeds; HPLC-DAD-MS(n); Mannoproteins; Pedro Ximénez; Vitis vinifera L. Syrah.