Valentina Canuti – DAGRI – Dipartimento di Scienze e Tecnologie Agrarie, Alimentari, Ambientali e Forestali– Università degli Studi di Firenze
Monitoring the oxidability of must and wine is one of the current challenges in oenological research. It is essential for ensuring product stability, shelf life, and the correct dosage of additives or adjuvants for protective purposes. This aspect is closely related to the phenolic component, which is mainly responsible for redox reactions in wines. Therefore, understanding the redox state of musts and wines – i.e., their oxidoreductive balance and tendency to oxidation – is essential for effective winemaking management.
Moreover, wine color is related to two key variables that describe redox status: antioxidant power and redox potential. Nevertheless, these variables are not well monitored during production due to the complexity of oxidative reactions and the difficulty of applying the current methods to assess antioxidant activity, such as the DPPH, FRAP, and ABTS tests, directly in the winery. Additionally, measuring and interpreting redox potential poses additional technical challenges.
Therefore, it becomes necessary to develop new analysis approaches that are simpler, faster, and more accessible, even for small wineries and operators with less laboratory experience. The Wine Antioxidant Test (WAT) is a rapid test that provides an immediate and reliable assessment of a wine’s redox status directly in the winery, facilitating decision-making during production.
This study aimed to explore the correlation between redox parameters and the fermentation/maceration processes of Sangiovese grapes, proposing the WAT as a useful tool to assess the redox stability of wine and follow the extraction of phenolic compounds, with the aim of simplifying the monitoring of wine oxidability in the different oenological stages.
