Abstract

CANAS, Sara  and  BELCHIOR, A. Pedro. Effects of caramel addition on the characteristics of wine brandies. Ciência Téc. Vitiv. [online]. 2013, vol.28, n.2, pp.51-58. ISSN 0254-0223.

According to the European legislation, the wine brandies may only contain added caramel as a means to adapt colour. Nevertheless, there is no legal limit for the concentration of this additive, neither specifications for the product and the technological procedure. The present study was performed aiming at contribute to extend the knowledge on caramel’s composition and its effects on the chemical composition and chromatic characteristics of the wine brandies, for technological purposes and quality control. Thus, the physicochemical composition of three kinds of wine brandies (freshly distilled brandy, freshly distilled brandy diluted to 40 % v/v, and 13-years aged brandy) and two representative types of caramel (Royal^® and E150d) were analysed. The results demonstrate that caramel has highly significant influence on the chromatic characteristics (lightness, saturation, chromaticity coordinates and absorbance at 470 nm), but also on the total phenolic index, furfural and HMF contents, and total reducing sugars content of the wine brandies. Among them, the caramel mainly affects coordinate a*, lightness, total phenolic index and HMF content according to the significant correlations found between the caramel concentration and the characteristics acquired by the brandies. In addition, the composition of the caramel has a determining role on its effect, although the result obtained is conditioned by the chemical composition of each kind of brandy. It is also shown the interest of the furfural/ HMF ratio as discriminator for the caramel addition since it is higher than the unit only for the wine brandies produced without caramel, being a useful tool to assess the authenticity of the aged wine brandies.

Keywords : wine brandies; caramel; chemical composition; HPLC; chromatic characteristics.

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