Maintenance of colour composition of a red wine during storage. Influence of prefermentative practices, maceration time and storage

Abstract

The effect of two different prefermentative treatments (the moment of SO2 addition and the use of fining agents), three different maceration times (4, 5 and 10 d), two different storage conditions and the length of storage on wine colour composition has been studied. The results show that the addition of SO2 at the moment of crushing, the use of the fining agent polyvinylpolypyrrolidone and long maceration times produced wines with a higher anthocyanin, ionised anthocyanins and polymeric compounds content, greater colour density, and an overall colour quality. Principal components analysis showed that the wines were mainly grouped according to their length of maceration and storage condition. After 12 mo of storage, wines elaborated with 10-d skin maceration were those with greatest colour quality. © 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd.