IS WINE INDUSTRIALIZATION LOWERING NATURAL QUALITIES OF WHITE WINES?

The antioxidant potential of white wines depends on their total phenols content, which is a direct consequence of the winemaking procedure (traditional versus industrial vinification procedures). A comparison of the antioxidant activity and phenols content of several bottled and home-manufactured white wines has been made. The bottled white wines had statistically significant lower levels of both total antioxidant activity (1.02 +/- 0.24 mmol/L Trolox equivalents vs. 1.92 +/- 0.58, p < 0.005) and total phenols content (242.60 +/- 55.05 mg gallic acid equivalents/L vs. 350.48 +/- 87.50, p = 0.007) when compared to the home-made ones. Moreover, in both groups we found statistically significant positive correlations between the total phenols content and the total antioxidant capacity. These results suggest that industrial producers could introduce a supplementary step in order to enhance the extraction of polyphenols during the industrial processing of white grapes.