Distribution of mutagenic activity in aperitif, fruit and dessert wines

Abstract

Forty-nine fortified wines, dessert wines, aperitifs and fruit wines were tested for mutagenicity using a standardised Ames test system in the presence or absence of S9 rat liver homogenate and faecalase. In general, little or no mutagenic activity was detected in the samples of aperitifs, sherries, madeiras, marsalas, dessert wines, most ports and most fruit wines. Thirty-seven of the beverage samples contained mutagenic activity equivalent to less than 1 mg quercetin l -1 under all test conditions. The beverages possessing higher direct-acting mutagenic activity included one fruit wine made from raspberries, and wine beverages made from red grapes, including black muscat dessert wines, ports and a sangria. Treatment of concentrated wine beverage samples with S9 and faecalase, or S9 alone, generally had little effect on mutagenic activity, but increases of up to 1.7 mg equivalents of quercetin l -1 were observed in specific samples.

The evolution of wine research

“…At that time of the evolution of organic winemaking, the future that organic, sustainably produced wine would have played upon the demand of today's consumers for organic wine products, and the relationship and importance organically produced grapes would have upon the environment were only beginning to be addressed. Wine chemistry, however, was the predominant focus of the journal's early wine research topics addressing subjects including aperitifs, fruit and dessert wines (Nguyen et al, 1990), minerals and water supply (Hancock and Price, 1990) and chemicals (Fluss et al, 1990).…”