Production of Wine from Soursop Fruit Pulp for Entrepreneurship and Economic Sustainability in Rivers State, Nigeria

Abstract

The role of fruits in the human diet is well established due to various important nutritive and biologically active components intrinsic to fruits. Consequently, fruit wines tend to preserve these components, along with developing new desirable ones in the final product. Wine contains most of the nutrients present in the original fruit juice. The production of fruit wines is growing steadily in recent years, driven by the demand for new functional products. Soursop has a short shelf life under the prevailing temperature and humidity conditions. This results in to waste of fruits because of poor handling and inadequate storage facilities. Moreover, fermenting soursop juice into wine is considered an attractive means of utilizing surplus soursop. In this research, Table wine was successfully produced from soursop juice with an alcoholic content of 7%; physiochemical and sensory evaluation revealed the wine was of good quality after aging for three months. Results were comparable to a commercial wine used as a control.