ARTICLE IN PRESS

Journal of Food Composition and Analysis 21 (2008) 587588

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Journal of Food Composition and Analysis

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jfca

Commentary

Wine: Food of poets and scientists

Barbara Burlingame
Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), Viale delle Terme di Caracalla, 00100 Rome, Italy

a r t i c l e in fo

Keywords: Wine Vitis vinifera Biodiversity Food composition

The word food has many denitions, but it is reasonable to give preference to that provided by the Codex Alimentarius Commission: Food means any substance, whether processed, semi-processed or raw, which is intended for human consumption, and includes drinky Thus, wine is food, and a fair topic for the Journal of Food Composition and Analysis, as would be beer, brandy, and other beverages, both alcoholic and non-alcoholic. Throughout millennia, wine, more than most foods, has captured the imaginations of poets and philosophers. More recently, it has captured the imaginations of scientists and various agri-food industries. The scientic community, and specically the food composition scientic community, has found wine to be a very worthy subject for investigation. From 1987 through 2006, this Journal averaged about two to three papers per year on wine. In 2007 and 2008, there will be 26 papers, which in two years is equivalent to the previous 19 years. It is worth noting that this Special Issue did not result from a call for papers, but represents entirely normal, unsolicited submissions that simply reect the explosion in interest. The average wine consumer knows well the biodiversity of Vitis vinifera, and can recite varietal names and characteristic specic to the grape genetic resources almost as easily as the alphabet, Aglianco to Zibbibo. The self-same consumer can utter the vocabulary of organoleptic characteristics of the fermented juice, from the texture of the tannins to the levels of sweetness or acidity, with as much condence as, and more panache than, a sensory physiologist. And the complex chemistry of wine composition is familiar to wine consumers, who can wax lyrical about resveratrol and anthocyanins. No other food has contributed to mainstreaming the appreciation of agro-biodiversity, sensory sciences, and even food chemistry, as much as wine.

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E-mail address: barbara.burlingame@fao.org 0889-1575/$ - see front matter & 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.jfca.2008.08.001

With the overwhelming conicts and contradictions related to foods and food components, and diets and dietary patterns, wine provides some solace, albeit not without its own contractions in most risk:benet analyses. Perhaps this is another reason for the fascination it holds, but this would be a topic for a different scientic discipline. Ours is fascinating enough. This Special Issue contains a treasure trove of exciting information: some new and solid, some preliminary and worthy of further study, and one critical review. The geographic area covered is surprising, for in addition to papers on familiar wine regions such as Spains Galicia (Feijoo et al., 2008) and Castilla-La Mancha (Izquierdo Canas et al., 2008a, b), and Portugal (Bravo et al., 2008; Canas et al., 2008; Oliveira et al., 2008), there are papers from Japan (Poudel et al., 2008) and the destined-to-be-famous new wine appellation of Changli County, China (Tao et al., 2008). Filling the middle geographic area in terms of familiarity are Greece (Roussis et al., 2008) and the Canary Islands (Cullere et al., 2008). Both familiar and unfamiliar grape varieties are covered in this Special Issue. At the familiar end are Bordeauxs iconic Cabernet Sauvignon, expatriated to China (Tao et al., 2008), Spains emblematic white variety, Albarino (Feijoo et al., 2008), and its most famous red, Tempranillo (Izquierdo Canas et al., 2008a, b), and the ubiquitous Muscatel which nds a wonderful expression in the fortied wines of the Setubal region of Portugal (Bravo et al., 2008). Unfamiliar grapes investigated include some East Asian wild species and hybrids (Poudel et al., 2008); as nonvinifera species these would not be permitted in winemaking in many countries, yet they have genetic traits that may be highly desirable in breeding programmes. Notwithstanding the interesting regions, grape varieties and wine styles, the very point of the Special Issue is composition and analysis, and herein lies the excitement. Naturally, resveratrol is showcased in many of the articles, for method (Bravo et al., 2008) and as the major analyte (Feijoo et al., 2008; Iacopini et al., 2008). Several other papers measure and report on an array of phytochemicals with potent bioactivities, including total phenols,

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avonols, procyanidins, anthocyanins, and more (Canas et al., 2008; Cerovic et al., 2008; Iacopini et al., 2008; Ro Segade et al., 2008a, b; Roussis et al., 2008; Salaha et al., 2008). Other compositional investigations involve metals (Espinoza et al., 2008; Ibanez et al., 2008), amino acids and biogenic amines (Izquierdo Canas et al., 2008a), and aromas (Cullere et al., 2008; Izquierdo Canas et al., 2008b; Oliveira et al., 2008). Some new methods are presented with data and comparisons. These include two for determining phenolic ripeness by skin texture analysis (Ro Segade et al., 2008a), and with optical sensors (Cerovic et al., 2008), wine discrimination (Lozano et al., 2008), and resveratrol again (Bravo et al., 2008). Wine is considered living by poets and winemakers alike. Thus wine matures develops, and evolves, sometimes for the better and sometimes for the worse. Some of these processes are addressed in this Special Issue, with papers on the effects of vibration (Chung et al., 2008), ageing (Karathanos et al., 2008), and preservation through alternatives to sulfur dioxide (Salaha et al., 2008). For good measure, in addition to wines, there are papers on Portuguese Brandy (Canas et al., 2008) and Czech beer (Kabelova et al., 2008), and alcoholic beverages generally (Ibanez et al., 2008). Wine has been a useful food for aligning those concerned with conservation and sustainable use of plant genetic resources and those concerned with food pleasure. Wine biodiversity, geographic indications, and sensory aspects have served to bring consumers closer to the source of their food. But why has wine attracted so much more attention in this regard? Surely there is nearly as much to be said about other foods, if only they were to capture the imagination of those poets and philosophers.

References
Bravo, M.N., Feliciano, R., Silva, S., Coelho, A.V., Vilas Boas, L., Bronze, M.R., 2008. Analysis of trans-resveratrol: Comparison of methods and contents in Muscatel fortied wines from Setubal region in Portugal. Journal of Food Composition and Analysis 21, 634643. Canas, S., Casanova, V., Pedro Belchior, A., 2008. Antioxidant activity and phenolic content of Portuguese wine aged brandies. Journal of Food Composition and Analysis 21, 626633. Cerovic, Z.G., Moise, N., Agati, G., Latouche, G., Ben Ghozlen, N., Meyer, S., 2008. New portable optical sensors for the assessment of winegrape phenolic maturity based on berry uorescence. Journal of Food Composition and Analysis 21, 650654. Chung, H., Son, J., Park, E., Kim, E., Lim, S., 2008. Effect of vibration and storage on some physico-chemical properties of a commercial red wine. Journal of Food Composition and Analysis 21, 655659.

Codex Alimentarius Commission. Procedural Manual, 17th ed, Joint FAO/WHO Food Standards. /ftp://ftp.fao.org/codex/Publications/ProcManuals/Manual_17e.pdfS. Cullere, L., Escudero, A., Perez-Trujillo, J.P., Cacho, J., Ferreira, V., 2008. 2-Methyl-3(methyldithio) furan: A new odorant identied in different monovarietal red wines from the Canary Islands and aromatic prole of these wines. Journal of Food Composition and Analysis 21, 708715. Espinoza, M., Olea Azar, C., Massiff, G., Villa, A., 2008. Development of a reference material for copper and iron in wine. Journal of Food Composition and Analysis 21, 684688. Feijoo, O., Moreno, A., Falque, E., 2005. Content of trans- and cis-resveratrol in Galician white and red wines. Journal of Food Composition and Analysis 21, 608613. Iacopini, P., Baldi, M., Storchi, P., Sebastiani, L., 2008. Catechin, epicatechin, quercetin, rutin and resveratrol in red grape: Content, in vitro antioxidant activity and interactions. Journal of Food Composition and Analysis 21, 589598. Ibanez, J.G., Carreon-Alvarez, A., Barcena-Soto, M., Casillas, N., 2008. Metals in alcoholic beverages: A review of sources, effects, concentrations, removal, speciation, and analysis. Journal of Food Composition and Analysis 21, 672683. Izquierdo Canas, P.M., Garca Romero, E., Gomez Alonso, S., Fernandez Gonzalez, M., Palop Herreros, M.L.L., 2008a. Amino acids and biogenic amines during spontaneous malolactic fermentation in Tempranillo red wines. Journal of Food Composition and Analysis 21, 731735. Izquierdo Canas, P.M., Garca Romero, E., Gomez Alonso, S., Palop Herreros, M.L.L., 2008b. Changes in the aromatic composition of Tempranillo wines during spontaneous malolactic fermentation. Journal of Food Composition and Analysis 21, 724730. Kabelova, I., Dvorakova, M., Czkova, H., Dostalek, P., Melzoch, K., 2008. Determination of free amino acids in beers: A comparison of Czech and foreign brands. Journal of Food Composition and Analysis 21, 736741. Karathanos, V., Syrimbei, C., Chiou, A., Karathanos, A., Makris, D.P., 2008. Evolution of benzoate derivatives and their hydroxycinnamate analogues during ageing of white wines in oak barrels. Journal of Food Composition and Analysis 21, 667671. Lozano, J., Santos, J.P., Carmen Horrillo, M., 2008. Enrichment sampling methods for wine discrimination with gas sensors. Journal of Food Composition and Analysis 21, 716722. Oliveira, J.M., Oliveira, P., Baumes, R.L., Maia, O., 2008. Changes in aromatic characteristics of Loureiro and Alvarinho wines during maturation. Journal of Food Composition and Analysis 21, 695707. Poudel, P.R., Tamura, H., Kataoka, I., Mochioka, R., 2008. Phenolic compounds and antioxidant activities of skins and seeds of ve wild grapes and two hybrids native to Japan. Journal of Food Composition and Analysis 21, 622625. Ro Segade, S., Rolle, L., Gerbi, V., Orriols, I., 2008a. Phenolic ripeness assessment of grape skin by texture analysis. Journal of Food Composition and Analysis 21, 644649. Ro Segade, S., Soto Vazquez, E., Daz Losada, E., 2008b. Inuence of ripeness grade on accumulation and extractability of grape skin anthocyanins in different cultivars. Journal of Food Composition and Analysis 21, 599607. Roussis, I.G., Lambropoulos, I., Tzimas, P., Gkoulioti, A., Marinos, V., Tsoupeis, D., et al., 2008. Antioxidant activities of some Greek wines and wine phenolic extracts. Journal of Food Composition and Analysis 21, 614621. Salaha, M.-I., Kallithraka, S., Marmaras, I., Koussissi, E., Tzourou, I., 2008. A natural alternative to sulfur dioxide for red wine production: inuence on colour, antioxidant activity and anthocyanin content. Journal of Food Composition and Analysis 21, 660666. Tao, Y., Li, H., Wang, H., Zhang, L., 2008. Volatile compounds of young Cabernet Sauvignon red wine from Changli County (China). Journal of Food Composition and Analysis 21, 689694.