Abstract
Fining treatments involve the addition of a substance or a mixture to wine, and are generally carried out in order to clarify, stabilize or modify the wine’s organoleptic characteristics. Usually these fining agents will bind the target compound(s) to form insoluble aggregates that are subsequently removed from the wine. The main reasons to perform wine fining treatments are to carry out wine clarification, stabilization and to remove phenolic compounds imparting unwanted sensory characteristics on the wine, which is an operation that often relies on the use of animal proteins, such as casein, gelatin, egg and fish proteins. However, due to the allergenic potential of these animal proteins, there is an increasing interest in developing alternative solutions including the use of fining proteins extracted from plants (e.g., proteins from cereals, grape seeds, potatoes, legumes, etc.), and non-proteinaceous plant-based substances (e.g., cell wall polysaccharides and pomace materials). In this article, the state of the art alternative fining agents of plant origins are reviewed for the first time, including considerations of their organoleptic and technological effects on wine, and of the allergenic risks that they can pose for consumers.
Highlights
Fining is a widely used oenological practice that involves a substance or a mixture being added in order to clarify, stabilize or modify the organoleptic characteristics of the wine
Fining agents based on plant proteins continue to be studied and benchmarked versus animal counterparts, and this has led to the development of several products that have already reasons, including safety, personal preferences and economic convenience
Fining agents based on plant proteins continue to be studied and benchmarked versus animal counterparts, and this has led to the development of several products that have already been approved, commercialized and successfully used by winemakers worldwide
Summary
Fining is a widely used oenological practice that involves a substance or a mixture being added in order to clarify, stabilize or modify the organoleptic characteristics of the wine. A wide range of proteins have been proposed and are currently used as fining agents in winemaking These can be broadly classified as: i) animal proteins, generally obtained from collagen (e.g., bovine and porcine gelatin) [2,3], egg (e.g., ovalbumin), milk (e.g., caseinates), fish (e.g., isinglass) [4], and, more recently, ii) plant proteins, obtained from cereals (e.g., wheat gluten, corn zeins) [5,6,7,8,9], legumes (e.g., pea, soy and lentil proteins) [10], potatoes (e.g., patatin) [11,12], seaweeds (e.g., spirulina) [13], and grape seeds [14,15]. The general steps needed to develop a novel, effective and safe plant-based processing aid will be discussed
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