Fortification of Wine with Herbal Extracts: Production, Evaluation and Therapeutic applications of such Fortified Wines

Abstract

The health benefits of moderate and regular consumption of wine have been widely studied and reported. However, Fortification of wine for enhancing its properties like taste, flavour, strength has become a recent trend but, fortification of wine for increasing its healthful properties is less explored. This work explains how wine can be effectively fortified with extracts of herbs like, Holy basil (Ocimum sanctum), Lemon-grass (Cymbopogon citratus), Ginger (Zingiber officinale), and Peppermint (Mentha arvensis) to boost the health benefits and enhance the therapeutic applications of wine. Orange-wine was used as a base wine and extracts of these herbs were added to separate samples of wine. These fortified wine-samples were evaluated after each addition for development of better flavours, taste and to detect any undesirable change. The resulting wines were found to be highly acceptable and even better than the base wine. These fortified wines can be used in therapeutics due to the incorporated herbal extracts that have a widely accepted medicinal application in prevention and treatment of various disorders. Thus, such fortified alcoholic beverage has potential application