Nitrogen maceration of wine grape: An alternative and sustainable technique to carbonic maceration

Alessandro Bianchi; Gregorio Santini; Paola Piombino; Elisabetta Pittari; Chiara Sanmartin; Luigi Moio; Margherita Modesti; Andrea Bellincontro; Fabio Mencarelli

doi:10.1016/j.foodchem.2022.134138

Nitrogen maceration of wine grape: An alternative and sustainable technique to carbonic maceration

Food Chem. 2023 Mar 15;404(Pt A):134138. doi: 10.1016/j.foodchem.2022.134138. Epub 2022 Sep 8.

Authors

Alessandro Bianchi¹, Gregorio Santini², Paola Piombino³, Elisabetta Pittari⁴, Chiara Sanmartin⁵, Luigi Moio⁶, Margherita Modesti⁷, Andrea Bellincontro⁸, Fabio Mencarelli⁹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Agriculture, Food and Environment, University of Pisa, Via del Borghetto 80, Pisa 56124, Italy. Electronic address: alessandro.bianchi@phd.unipi.it.
² Department of Agriculture, Food and Environment, University of Pisa, Via del Borghetto 80, Pisa 56124, Italy.
³ Department of Agricultural Sciences, Division of Vine and Wine Sciences, University of Naples Federico II, Avellino 83100, Italy. Electronic address: paola.piombino@unina.it.
⁴ Department of Agricultural Sciences, Division of Vine and Wine Sciences, University of Naples Federico II, Avellino 83100, Italy. Electronic address: elisabetta.pittari@unina.it.
⁵ Department of Agriculture, Food and Environment, University of Pisa, Via del Borghetto 80, Pisa 56124, Italy. Electronic address: chiara.sanmartin@unipi.it.
⁶ Department of Agricultural Sciences, Division of Vine and Wine Sciences, University of Naples Federico II, Avellino 83100, Italy. Electronic address: moio@unina.it.
⁷ DIBAF, University of Tuscia, Via De Lellis, 01100 Viterbo, Italy. Electronic address: margherita.modesti@unitus.it.
⁸ DIBAF, University of Tuscia, Via De Lellis, 01100 Viterbo, Italy. Electronic address: bellin@unitus.it.
⁹ Department of Agriculture, Food and Environment, University of Pisa, Via del Borghetto 80, Pisa 56124, Italy. Electronic address: fabio.mencarelli@unipi.it.

PMID: 36444007
DOI: 10.1016/j.foodchem.2022.134138

Abstract

Carbonic maceration (CM) consists in placing intact grape bunches into a sealed tank to have a natural or artificially created carbon dioxide atmosphere. No articles have been published on the comparison between CM and nitrogen maceration (NM). Therefore, the present study aimed at testing the use of alternative maceration technique (NM) in alternative to CM, to create the conditions of anoxia on the Gamay variety. The results showed a higher concentration of polyphenols and anthocyanins in the macerated wines, especially in NM wine. Concerning VOCs (Volatile Organic Compounds), the CM wine showed the highest content in esters while the total alcohol content was slightly higher in the NM wines. The CM wine had the highest content in volatile medium chain fatty acids (MCFA). E-nose measurements revealed a clear separation among the samples, and the E-nose data, in PCA computation, were generally overlapped by the PCA of VOCs analysis. The NM showed a potential as environmentally sustainable technique useful to produce a new style of macerated and aromatic wines.

Keywords: Carbon maceration; E-nose; Grape maceration; Nitrogen maceration; VOCs; Wine.

MeSH terms

Anthocyanins
Nitrogen
Postmortem Changes
Vitis*
Wine*

Substances

Nitrogen
Anthocyanins