FORGOTTEN FRUITS AS POTENTIAL WINE RAW MATERIALS

Abstract

Background. The local and world market for fruit wines is constantly developing, which brings the necessity to discover new, valuable wine raw materials with an interesting sensory profile and unique technological properties. This work determines the possibilities of using fruits that in the food industry represent a small processing share, i.e. cornelian cherry, hawthorn, white mulberry, elderberry, for the production of fruit wines, as well as presents real problems related to the production of wines from the above fruits and puts forward solutions to such problems. Results and conclusion. The selected fruits are, to a different extent, suitable for wine production because of the necessity to use various winemaking techniques during the production of liquors. Typical characteristics of cornelian cherry include its sugar content ranging from 6 to 19%, the need to use pectolytic enzymes and the ease of obtaining must. The sugar content of hawthorn fruits is at the level of 13% and because of dry and floury pulp, it is difficult to obtain must. The sugar concentration of white mulberry fruits is on average 12% and their characteristic feature is relatively easy processing before fermentation. Elderberry fruits have a low sugar content, approx. 9%. Due to the presence of toxic cyanogenic glycoside sambunigrine in elderberry flesh, additional heat treatment is necessary to reduce its content. The smallest degree of adjustment as regards acidity and sugar content is required for white mulberry, while the biggest for elderberry and cornelian cherry . Because of additional technological treatments, elderberry and hawthorn are, of all the fruits presented above, the least suitable for the production of fruit wines.