Wine Antioxidant Test to assess the antioxidant power of wine

In today’s wine production landscape, technological innovation is crucial to address the needs associated with wine quality control. It is critical for producers to have simple and rapid analytical methods that facilitate fast decision making and allow for appropriate action in case of deviations from normal winemaking conditions.  

One of the most significant trends is the demand for more natural wines, which has led producers to reduce the use of additives in winemaking. In addition, climate changes are having a significant impact on the oxidability and redox potential of the product, and their effects and implications have already been observed on grape composition.   

In this perspective, the accurate assessment of the antioxidant power of musts and wines becomes crucial. This process involves understanding their oxidoreductive state and tendency to oxidation.  

Because of the complexity of these phenomena and the tests available on the market, the evaluation of the antioxidant power of wines has been little used in wineries to date. It is therefore necessary to have new approaches that allow more complete and reliable evaluations, which can be used even by small wineries and those with less laboratory experience. 

This is the context in which the Wine Antioxidant Test – WAT kit was created; it is the result of the collaboration between DNAPhone srl, H&D srl (a company dedicated to measuring oxidative stress in health care) and the DAGRI department of the University of Florence, under the supervision of Professor Valentina Canuti. The combination of R&D expertise has enabled the adaptation and optimization of an established chemistry, making it suitable for the needs of today’s wine market. 

The WAT, is designed to quantitatively measure the antioxidant power of wine in a routine way for quality control during the production process. 

The kit is available in two formats. The first, integrated with DNAPhone’s SMΔRT ANALYSIS platform, is easy to use and guides the user step by step, making the analysis accessible even to those with less laboratory experience. DNAPhone provides the kit in a twenty-analysis package, consisting of pre-filled, ready-to-use reagents. It requires no calibration by the user and the reagent is stable at room temperature for at least 12 months from the date of packaging.  

The second format is in a “Standard” version, meaning it can be used with any benchtop spectrophotometer.  

The Wine Antioxidant Test acts similarly to the FRAP method – Ferric Reducing Antioxidant Power (Benzie & Strain 1996), that is, on the reduction of Fe (III) to Fe (II), but with a more practical approach. The kit can be an extremely effective tool for evaluating the impact of certain treatments on wines by not reacting with free sulfur dioxide at the concentrations allowed in wines, thus allowing the evaluation of the intrinsic antioxidant power of the product. 

This new kit aims to provide crucial data to optimize choices during all stages of wine production, storage and commercialization, allowing producers to make technical choices aimed at quality excellence and optimal management of product shelf life during the commercial phase.