ABSTRACT
The search for nutritional and nutraceutical foods and their health benefits beyond basic nutrition is constantly increasing. Among beverages, many of these beneficial characteristics are present in wine. Wines contain phenolic compounds in their composition, which are responsible for several health benefits due to their antioxidant capacity. However, as wine technology is complex and involves several steps, wineries encounter problems with the degradation of these compounds, which adversely affect wine quality. Basically, wine is composed of water and ethanol, but it is nevertheless considered to be one of the most complex beverages due to the presence of minor compounds such as phenolic and volatile substances, which interfere in both the chemical and sensory profiles. Wine technology demands intensive care since it involves great numbers of chemical reactions during the two fermentative steps: alcoholic fermentation which involves the yeast metabolism of sugars, and malolactic fermentation which involves malic acid decarboxylation into lactic acid by lactic acid bacteria. In this context, new trends in wine making are the object of several scientific studies. Among them, thermovinification, grape pre-dehydration, cold soaking, carbonic maceration, submerged cap and the application of selected yeasts and pectinases are examples of techniques applied by Latin American wineries in order to study the reactions involving changes in these minor compounds, assessing the antioxidant capacity as the main nutritional factor and providing results about the improvement of wine sensory quality. The wine making techniques reported in this chapter bring relevant results about the chemical behavior of all wine composition, mainly regarding phenolic compounds, such as anthocyanins and tannins. In
addition, all the chemical changes described were correlated with the wine sensory features, which allow for the assessment of sensory quality. The present chapter aims to present a discussion of the state of the art of alternative wine making technologies and their effects on the chemical, sensory and nutritional profiles of the wines, the latter through the analysis of the antioxidant capacity.
