Eur Food Res Technol (2013) 237:711719

DOI 10.1007/s00217-013-2045-3

ORIGINAL PAPER

Evolution of some physicochemical properties in Cornus officinalis

wine during fermentation and storage
Qing-An Zhang Xue-Hui Fan Wu-Qi Zhao
Xiao-Yu Wang Hong-Zhu Liu

Received: 26 April 2013 / Revised: 10 June 2013 / Accepted: 11 June 2013 / Published online: 27 June 2013
Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2013

Abstract In order to modify the sharp sour and astringent

mouthfeel of fresh consumption, an alcoholic beverage was
developed for the first time from the fruit of Cornus officinalis. Evolution of some physicochemical properties such
as titratable acidity, total phenolic content (TPC) and free
radical-scavenging capacity during fermentation and storage was monitored in the C. officinalis wines fermented
with two different techniques. Overall, the studied parameters had a rapid increase during fermentation, then followed by a decrease until the end of storage, except
titratable acidity and gallic acid which kept increasing
throughout the winemaking process. Strong positive correlations were observed between free radical-scavenging
capacity and TPC (0.7378 B R2 B 0.9555), suggesting that
total phenols in C. officinalis wines are the main compounds responsible for the antioxidant capacity. Considering the content of constituents and antioxidant capacity,
the wine fermented with C. officinalis pomace is better than
that without pomace, indicating the former is the feasible
fermentation protocol for C. officinalis wine. While
regarding the rapid decrease in some parameters during
storage, it suggests that this fruit wine should be suitable
for fresh consumption and not be aged for longer time. In a
word, all the results pointed to the importance of fermentation methods and also revealed that most of the studied
parameters might be as feasible indicators to monitor the

Q.-A. Zhang (&)  W.-Q. Zhao  X.-Y. Wang  H.-Z. Liu

School of Food Engineering and Nutrition Sciences, Shaanxi
Normal University, Xian 710062, Peoples Republic of China
e-mail: qinganzhang@snnu.edu.cn
X.-H. Fan
College of Sports, Shaanxi Normal University, Xian 710062,
Peoples Republic of China

C. officinalis wines fermentation status, quality and ageing

potential in oenological industry.
Keywords Evolution  Physicochemical properties 
Cornus officinalis wine  Fermentation  Storage

Introduction
The fruit of Cornus officinalis Sieb. et Zucc. (Corni Fructus) is considered a traditional medicine for its tonic,
analgesic and diuretic properties in China, Korea and Japan
and is widely used in many traditional Chinese medicine
prescriptions [1, 2]. The fruit is also called Shan-zhu-yu in
Chinese and San-syu-yu in Japanese. It belongs to the
Cornaceae family and is recorded as an astringent and has a
nourishing effect on the liver and kidney in the Pharmacopoeia of the Peoples Republic of China.
The main constituents of the fruit are organic acids,
iridoids glycoside, polyphenols, polysaccharides, saponins,
loganins and tannins, which are attributed to its health
promotion [3, 4]. Although the fruit contains many active
compounds, it is not suitable for fresh consumption, due to
the sharp mouthfeel of sour and astringency from organic
acids and tannins contained in it, which may also explain
the very limited development for food with this good
foodstuff by now.
As an alcoholic beverage, wine consumption has been
increasing due to its positive health benefits and also an
indispensable part of etiquette culture at dinner table in
some countries, especially in China. Generally, wine can be
made from different varieties of materials, such as fruits
(grapes, apples, peach and pomegranates), starch-rich
grains like rice and barley, and medicinal herbs like ginger,
Chinese red dates, marijuana, etc. The C. officinalis Sieb. et

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Zucc. wine is an alcoholic beverage obtained by fermenting the fruit of C. officinalis with the addition of sugars.
With the bioactive compounds in C. officinalis transferred
to the fermented solution, on the one hand, a new palatable
beverage would be developed instead of fresh consumption
of the sour and astringent fruits, on the other hand, there is
no doubt that regular consumption of this beverage will do
have a positive health-promoting effect, which may be
demonstrated by the moderate intake of Chinese white
wine (with an alcoholic content of approximate 50 % by
volume) macerated with Shan-zhu-yu for assisting therapeutic cure or health keeping in Chinese folk.
Winemaking is considered as the production of wine,
starting with selection of the grapes or other produce, and
ending with bottling the finished wine. Narrow definition of
winemaking usually includes two stages: fermentation and
ageing. Tens of thousands of chemical compounds may be
present in amounts varying from a few per cent to a few
parts per billion during the fermenting period, which is
mainly based on the transfer from the fermented materials
and the conversion of sugars into alcohol, and obvious
changes can be observed about the conventional oenological parameters as well as some physicochemical properties, such as pH, alcohol strength, acidity, chromatic
characteristics, total phenols, volatile compounds and
antioxidant capacity [59]. After finishing fermentation,
wine is usually stored in oak barrels or containers for some
time, where wine undergoes some important modifications,
and produces more elegant and stable colours, a more
complex aroma and better taste. These changes are the
consequence of different phenomena such as spontaneous
clarification, CO2 elimination, slow and continuous diffusion of oxygen through wood pores and the transference of
characteristic wood compounds into the wine [1012].
There are numerous publications reporting the evolution
of physicochemical properties of wines during fermentation and ageing, such as colour, phenolic compounds, pH,
alcohol content, and the effect of winemaking methods
[13], and vintage and storage conditions on the evolution
[1416]. The monitoring for these parameters has recently
been applied to guide winemaking and quality control in
wine oenological industry, and some of the parameters
have been considered as effective indicators for the evaluation of wine fermentation and ageing potential. As a
crucial step for the deep processing of Corni Fructus into
wine, the fermentation parameters, such as temperature,
yeast, SO2, filter techniques and solid/liquid ratio, have
been studied with this precious fruit by some researchers
[17, 18]. Unfortunately, the changes have not been monitored about the chemical compositions of the wines that
occurred during fermentation and ageing, since this evolution can be used to track the wine quality and provide
useful information on the improvement of winemaking.

123

Eur Food Res Technol (2013) 237:711719

Considering this, the work was therefore conducted to

investigate the changes of some chemical parameters and
the antioxidant capacity in the wines during fermentation
and maturation. Besides that, the effect of fermentation
with or without C. officinalis pomace on the evolution
was also studied, in order to achieve some valuable
information on the production of high-quality C. officinalis wine.

Materials and methods

Materials
2,2-Diphenyl-1-picryl-hydrazyl (DPPH), FolinCiocalteaus reagent and methanol were purchased from SigmaAldrich (Sigma-Aldrich, China). Ferrous sulphate, salicylic
acid, pyrogallol, orthophosphoric acid, malic acid and
sodium carbonate anhydrous were of analytical grade and
purchased from Shaanxi Heping Chemical Glass Co., Ltd.
Xian, China. Gallic acid, loganin and sweroside used as
standards were purchased from ChengDu Must Bio-technology Co., Ltd. Sichuan province, China. Ultrapure water
produced with a Millipore purification system (USA) was
used to prepare mobile phases and other related solutions in
the experiments.
Wines and sampling
Cornus officinalis fruits were harvested in 2009 from Luanchuan county of Henan province, China. The fresh fruits
were selected and dried for 30 h at the temperature of
60 C with a final water content of 9.0 % (g/g). The
samples were stored under dark place for further use. Dried
fruits were macerated into the water of 50 C (1:10) for
4 h, then the mixtures were ultrasonically treated for 1 h in
an ultrasound bath (KQ3200B type, 40.0 kHz, 150 W,
Kunshan ultrasonic instrument Co. Ltd., Jiangsu, China),
and the temperature was controlled at the temperature of
40 C by regulating the flux ratio between the in-water and
out-water connected to the bath. The ultrasonically
extracted solutions were divided into two batches, one was
C. officinalis clear juice, which was filtrated through
polyamide fibre membranes, and the other was must, i.e.,
the C. officinalis pomace was included.
The content of sugars is 8.60 % in the fruit, which is not
enough to have sufficient alcohol levels, so supplementation of sugars (sucrose) was conducted to adjust to the level
of 185 g/L in the solutions before fermentation. Liquid of
SO2 was added to reach the level of 90 mg/L for preservation. Afterwards, the modified juice and must were
transported into some glass containers of 20 L, respectively. The dried industrial yeast was activated by glucose

Eur Food Res Technol (2013) 237:711719

solutions according to the instructions (Active dry wine

yeast, Angel Yeast Co. Ltd., Hubei province, China), and
the activated yeast solution was added to the juice/must
solution according to the ratio of 1:50 (mL/mL) for fermentation. The temperature was maintained between 22
and 25 C during alcoholic fermentation until the content
of total sugars lower than 4 g/L. Diatomaceous filtration
was conducted after fermentation, and subsequently, the
fresh wines (Wc for wine fermented with clear juice, and
Wp for wine fermented with C. officinalis pomace) were
stored in dark bottles under ambient temperature conditions
(1822 C) for about 12 months.
The samples were collected at the following periods: 0,
5, 17 and 27 day(s) fermentation after yeast addition
(marked as Wc-0d, Wc-5d, Wc-17d, Wc-27d, and Wp-0d, Wp5d, Wp-17d, Wp-27d, respectively) and 1, 4, 7, 10 and
12 months storage (Wc-1m, Wc-4m, Wc-7m, Wc-10m, Wc12m, Wp-1m, Wp-4m, Wp-7m, Wp-10m, Wp-12m). All the
collected samples were frozen (-18 C) until analysis.
Determination of titratable acidity and alcohol strength
Titratable acidity (TA) (expressed as g/100 mL of malic
acid) and alcohol strength (v/v) were determined as oenological quality parameters [19].
Determination of total phenolic content
Total phenolic content was determined by the FolinCiocalteau method [20] with some slight modifications. In a
25-mL test tube, 1.0 mL diluted sample (10-fold), 5.0 mL
distilled water, 1.0 mL of diluted FolinCiocalteaus
reagent (10-fold) and 3.0 mL of 7.5 % Na2CO3 were
orderly introduced. After reacting for 2 h at room temperature, the absorbance at 765 nm was measured by an
UVVIS spectrophotometer (TU-1810 type, Beijing Purkinje General Instrument Co., Ltd., China). The results
were expressed as mg gallic acid equivalents (GAE) per
litre of wine.
Free radical-scavenging assays
Hydroxyl free radical (HR) scavenging activity
HR scavenging activity was estimated using the method
described by Sroka and Cisowski [21] with a slight modification. Briefly, 100 lL of FeSO4 (0.02 M), 45 lL of
H2O2 (0.15 %) and 1 mL of salicylic acid (8 mM) were
subsequently mixed with 4 mL of distilled water. Then,
1 mL of sample was added to this mixture and reacted for
25 min at 37 C. The absorbance at 593 nm was measured,
and the percentage of free radical-scavenging activity was
calculated as follows:

713




HR scavenging ratio % 1  Asample =Acontrol  100:
Superoxide anion free radical (SA) scavenging activity
The SA scavenging activity was estimated at 25 C using the
spectrophotometric monitoring of the inhibition of pyrogallol autoxidation as previously described by Li et al. [22]
with some modifications. An aliquot of 2.80 mL TrisHCl
buffer (0.05 M, pH 8.20), 0.10 mL pyrogallol solution
(50 mM) and 0.10 mL ethanol were subsequently mixed.
After 3-min reaction, two droplets of HCl (8 M) were added
to the mixture for terminating the reaction, afterwards the
absorbance at 300 nm was measured using a spectrophotometer, and the absorbance was recorded as Acontrol. The
above procedures were repeated with the substitute of sample for ethanol, and the result was expressed as Asample. The
superoxide anion free radical-scavenging activity was
determined as the percentage of inhibiting pyrogallol
autoxidation, which was calculated as follows:



SA scavenging ratio % 1  Asample =Acontrol  100:
DPPH free radical-scavenging activity
The DPPH free radical-scavenging activity of the samples
was measured according to method described by BrandWilliams et al. [23], with slight modifications. Briefly,
0.1 mL aliquot of sample was added to 3.9 mL of DPPH
(10-4 M) in methanol. After a 30-min incubation period at
25 C in darkness, the decrease in the absorbance at
517 nm was measured. The control was made by adding
0.1 mL methanol to the DPPH instead of sample. The
DPPH free radical-scavenging activity by the samples was
calculated according to the following equation:
DPPH  free radical-scavenging

 ratio %
1  Asample =Acontrol  100:
Gallic acid, malic acid, loganin and sweroside
determinations by HPLC
HPLC analysis was performed using a Waters HPLC system, which consisted of a model 1525 binary HPLC pump
(Waters, Milford, MA) equipped with a Rheodyne injector
(loop, 20 lL) connected with a model 2996 photodiode
array detector (Waters). Chromatograms were analysed by
the Empower software (Waters). Samples were separated
on a TC-C18 column (5 lm, 4.6 mm 9 250 mm, Agilent,
USA). All mobile phases for the chromatographic analysis
were ultrasonically degassed for 25 min and filtrated
through a 0.45 lm membrane prior to use. The HPLC
working parameters were as follows: flow rate 1.0 mL/min,
column temperature 30 C, injection volume 20 lL and
mobile phases A (H2O containing 0.1 % orthophosphoric

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Statistical analysis
All determinations were performed in triplicate and
expressed as the mean SD (standard deviation). The
results were statistically analysed by analysis of variance
(ANOVA) with the SPSS of Version 16.0 (SPSS Inc.,
Chicago, IL, USA) for Windows.

Results and discussion

Evolution of titratable acidity and alcohol strength
in C. officinalis wines during fermentation and storage
Generally, organic acids and alcohols are two main parameters monitored in oenological industry, and they can reflect
the wines fermentation stage, quality and ageing potential.
As shown in Fig. 1, there was a rapid increase about the
alcohol contents during the fermentation stage for both of the
wines from two different fermenting techniques (Wc, without
C. officinalis pomace and Wp, with the pomace), which was
due to the conversion of sugars into alcohols caused by the
high metabolism of the activated yeasts, while the contents
decreased slightly during storage, which might be related to
the possible alcohol evaporation or esterification between
organic acids and alcohols. This finding is in accordance with
the results reported by Chung et al. [24]. The fact that their
concentrations decreased within an acceptable range suggests
that wine of good sensorial quality can be achieved through
suitable storage. Similarly, the content of titratable acids had a
steady increase with the increase in fermenting time, thereafter followed by a very slight increase trend during maturation. Compared with the values (either alcohol strength or
titratable acids) of Wc, the contents were always higher in the
wine fermented with pomace in both stages, which are
attributed to the transfer of residual sugars and organic acids in
the pomace. Moreover, the wine made with pomace had a
shorter fermentation period than that with clear juice, and the
former was only 17 days, while the latter was 27 days.
Evolution of total phenolic content in C. officinalis
wines during fermentation and storage
Phenolic compounds greatly contribute to the organoleptic
properties by affecting the colour, astringency and aroma

123

12.0

0.8

9.0

0.6

0.4

6.0
Wc-alcohol
Wp-alcohol
Wc-acid

3.0

0.0
0d

0.2

Wp-acid

5d

17d

27d

1m

4m

7m

10m

Titratable acid (g/100mL)

acid) and B (methanol containing 0.1 % orthophosphoric

acid). The linear gradient programme for the target compounds separation was used as follows: 045 min, 560 %
B; 4555 min, 60100 % B; and 5560 min, 1005 % B.
The PDA was set at 225 nm, and the peak identification
was confirmed by injecting the corresponding standards,
comparing the retention time and the UVVIS spectrum.

Eur Food Res Technol (2013) 237:711719

Alcohol strength (v/v)

714

0
12m

Time (d/m)

Fig. 1 Evolution of titratable acidity and alcohol strength in C. officinalis wines during fermentation and storage

of red wine. Figure 2 shows the evolution of total phenols

in the C. officinalis wines throughout the making process.
The concentration of total phenols underwent an obvious
increase from the initial value of 441.06 to 496.00 mg/L
(Wc) and 499.67 mg/L (Wp) during the first 5 days fermentation, and there was no significant differences of the
content between the wines of Wc and Wp on any day within
the initial 5 days fermentation, which suggests that the
fermentation techniques with or without pomace did not
affect the increase in total phenols during this fermenting
period. Afterwards, the contents steadily decreased to
427.36 mg/L (Wc) and 451.78 mg/L (Wp) till the end of
12 months storage, respectively. This decrease is in
accordance with the changing trend of total phenols in wine
during natural ageing, which is the consequence of either
the oxidation between the most readily oxidized phenolic
compounds and the micro-oxygen in wine or the precipitation of macromolecular complexes between phenols and
proteins or remnant from yeast walls [25].
Regarding to the effect of different fermentation techniques on the evolution of total phenols during ageing, the
total phenolic content (TPC) in Wp had a slower decrease
than that of Wc, which might suggest that Wp has a better
ageing potential than Wc. Finally, one worthy-mentioned
point is the superior phenolic content in the new varietal
C. officinalis wines compared to the content from 90 to
1,820 mg/mL in other berry and fruit wines [26].
Evolution of free radical-scavenging activity
in C. officinalis wines during fermentation and storage
Antioxidant capacity is one of the most studied and concerned properties in relation to the healthy benefits of wine
consumption and wine quality. Many methods have been
used to evaluate the antioxidant capacity, and free radicalscavenging assay is the most conducted one. However, due
to different reactive oxygen species and differences in

Eur Food Res Technol (2013) 237:711719

715
60

HR scavenging ratio (%)

Total phenolic content (mg/L)

540

495

450

Wc
Wp

405

50

40

Wc

30

Wp

20

360
0d

5d

17d

27d

1m

4m

7m

10m

0d

12m

5d

17d

Fig. 2 Evolution of total phenolic content in C. officinalis wines

during fermentation and storage

4m

7m

10m

12m

SA scavenging ratio (%)

50

40

30

20

Wc
Wp

10

0
0d

5d

17d

27d

1m

4m

7m

10m

12m

Time (d/m)
60

DPPH radical scavenging ratio(%)

Correlation between free radical-scavenging activity

and total phenolic content (TPC) in C. officinalis wines
during fermentation and storage

1m

Time (d/m)

Time (d/m)

reaction mechanisms, it is over-simplified and inappropriate selecting one single method for the antioxidant capacity
evaluation. For this reason, three free radical-scavenging
assays were employed to elucidate a full profile of the
antioxidant activity for the C. officinalis wines during
fermentation and storage, and the results were shown in
Fig. 3.
It can be observed that all the three varieties of free
radical-scavenging activity had a similar evolution trend
during that period, specifically, all of them increased
sharply from the starting to the day 5 of fermentation,
reaching the highest value on the fifth day, and then followed by a continuous decrease till the end of storage. This
finding coincides with that happened in conventional
winemaking process [8]. Moreover, all the free radicalscavenging ratios began to get lower than those before
fermentation from the fourth (Wc) or tenth (Wp) month of
storage to the end, respectively. Overall, the profile of the
free radical-scavenging ratio in Wp was always upper over
that in Wc, which may indicate that the former winemaking
protocol is better than the latter.

27d

50
Wc
Wp

40

30

20
0d

5d

17d

27d

1m

4m

7m

10m

12m

Time (d/m)

Due to the chemical reactions of monomeric and dimeric

anthocyanins during processing from musts to wine as well
as maturation, many polymerized polyphenols would be
formed, as a consequence of variations in both total phenolic content and free radical-scavenging activity [8]. In
the meantime, free radical-scavenging activity is usually
considered to be associated with the presence of phenols,
which could function as free radical terminators and metal
chelators. For this reason, correlation analysis was constructed between total phenolic contents and the free

Fig. 3 Evolution of free radical-scavenging activity in C. officinalis

wines during fermentation and storage

radical-scavenging ratios for the C. officinalis wines during

fermentation and storage, in order to explain the specific
health promotion of this new varietal fruit wine. On carrying out a lineal regression analysis, it was found that
there was a highly positive correlation between the total
phenolic contents and all the three free radical-scavenging

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Concentration evolutions of malic acid, gallic acid,

sweroside and loganin in C. officinalis wines
during fermentation and storage
One typical chromatogram for the C. officinalis wines
separated by HPLC at 225 nm was shown in Fig. 5 during
fermentation and storage. The peaks for 1, 2, 3 and 4 were
identified for compounds of malic acid, gallic acid,
sweroside and loganin by comparing the retention time and
UVVis spectrum with the injected corresponding standards, respectively. The contents of all the identified
compounds were calculated by the corresponding curves
constructed with standards of at least five appropriate
concentrations (Table 1) in the C. officinalis wines during
fermentation and maturation, and the evolution of these
results was shown in Fig. 6. Overall, all the identified
compounds had a quick increase in concentration and then
followed by a decrease throughout the C. officinalis
winemaking process, except for the gallic acid, which had a
rapid increase during fermentation, and a very slow rising
trend during maturation (Fig. 6b).

123

550

TPC (mg/L)

(a)

Wc
Wp
Wc
Wp

500

yp = 2.9984x + 336.08
R2 = 0.9555

450
yc = 3.7372x + 301.49
R2 = 0.941

400
30

35

40

45

50

55

60

HR radical scavenging ratio (%)

550

TPC (mg/L)

(b)
Wc
Wp
Wc
Wp

500

yp = 2.6735x + 370.11
R2 = 0.7378

450

yc = 3.9349x + 315.66
R2 = 0.8581

400
25

30

35

40

45

50

SA radical scavenging ratio (%)

550

(c)

TPC (mg/L)

ratios during the evolution of these parameters in the wines

(0.7378 B R2 B 0.9555) (Fig. 4), thus revealing that total
phenols greatly contribute to the antioxidant activity in C.
officinalis wines, at least in vitro. And these results also
coincide with that for various fruit wines as well as red,
rose and white wines reported by Sanchez-Moreno et al.
[27], and Sato et al. [28].
As shown in Fig. 4a, there was a very high degree of
correlation between total phenolic concentrations and HR
free radical-scavenging ratio either in Wp (R2 = 0.9555) or
Wc (R2 = 0.9410). These results further confirmed that the
HR radical-scavenging activity of the C. officinalis wines is
mainly due to the total phenolic compounds. In contrast to
the correlated coefficient values between TPC and HR
radical-scavenging activity, the values between SA free
radical-scavenging activity and TPC were relative lower,
R2 = 0.7378 for the wines of Wp and R2 = 0.8581 for Wc,
respectively (Fig. 4b). This is reasonable since the main
phenolic compositions are not the 3-glucosides of delphinidin, cyanidin, petunidin, pelargonidin and malvidin,
and the pyruvic adduct of the 3-glucoside of delphinidin in
the C. officinalis wines, while these compounds possess a
potent superoxide anion free radical-scavenging activity
[29]. In the case of correlation between TPC and DPPH
free radical-scavenging activity in Fig. 4c, the coefficient
value of 0.9314 for Wp was significantly higher than that of
0.8019 for Wc, which may be attributed to the specific
compounds transferred from the skins and seeds of C.
officinalis during fermentation, since the free radicalscavenging activity is dependent on the structures of
compounds.

Eur Food Res Technol (2013) 237:711719

Wc
Wp
Wc
Wp

500

yp = 2.182x + 382.09
R2 = 0.9314

450

yc = 3.4182x + 332.03
R2 = 0.8019

400
20

25

30

35

40

45

50

55

DPPH radical scavenging ratio (%)

Fig. 4 Correlation between free radical-scavenging activity and total

phenolic content in C. officinalis wines during fermentation and
storage

As regard to the evolution of malic acid (Fig. 6a), the

changing trend is in agreement with that in conventional
winemaking. Generally, the rapid increase was associated
with the metabolites caused by yeasts during alcoholic
fermentation, while the slight decrease might be the

Eur Food Res Technol (2013) 237:711719

Fig. 5 Typical chromatogram
of C. officinalis wines during
fermentation and storage

717

0.40

225 nm

AU

0.30

0.20

0.10

0.00
5.00

10.00

15.00

20.00

25.00

30.00

35.00

40.00

45.00

50.00

55.00

60.00

Time (min)

Table 1 Regression equation, coefficient and linear range for the standard compounds of malic acid, gallic acid, sweroside and loganin
Peak number
1

Compounds

Regression equation

Coefficient

Y = 1.09 9 10 x - 7.06 9 10

Malic acid

Linear range

r = 0.9994

18 mg/mL

r = 0.9999

30180 lg/mL

Gallic acid

Y = 2.2 9 10 x - 1910

Sweroside

Y = 6.3 9 104x ? 1.1 9 104

r = 0.9998

40200 lg/mL

Loganin

Y = 3.8 9 104x ? 1.0 9 106

r = 0.9997

100500 lg/mL

Loganin content (g/mL)

Fig. 6 Evolution of malic acid,

gallic acid, sweroside and
loganin in C. officinalis wines
during fermentation and storage

Malic acid content (mg/mL)

(a)
7
6
5
Wp
Wc

400

(c)
340
Wp
Wc

280

220

160

3
0d

5d

17d

27d

1m

4m

7m

10m 12m

0d

5d

120

(b)
90
Wp
Wc

60

30
0d

5d

17d 27d

1m

4m

Time (d/m)

consequence of bio-conversion from malic acid to lactic

acid induced by lactobacillus.
As demonstrated in Fig. 6b, the initial level was 38.47
lg/mL for the gallic acid in the C. officinalis juices and
sharply increased to 86.92 and 98.71 lg/mL on the 27th
day of fermentation in the wines of Wc and Wp,
respectively, and then slowly increased until the end of

17d 27d 1m

4m

7m 10m 12m

Time (d/m)

7m 10m 12m

Sweroside content (g/mL)

Gallic acid content (g/mL)

Time (d/m)
130

(d)
104
78

Wp
Wc

52
26
0
0d

5d

17d 27d

1m

4m

7m 10m 12m

Time (d/m)

storage. This evolutional trend of gallic acid is a bit

different from that of malic acid, sweroside and loganin,
all which showed a shape of K throughout the winemaking. The sharp increase for gallic acid might be the
consequence of hydrolysis releasing from ellagitannins
induced by yeast activity during alcoholic fermentation,
and the slight increase could be caused by other

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718

oxidative mechanisms throughout the wine elaboration

[26]. Generally, gallic acid is considered as one of the
most important antioxidants as a consequence of the
three free phenolic hydroxyl groups per molecule.
However, it seems that no strong correlation exhibited
between the gallic acid and the free radical-scavenging
activity regarding to the different evolution trends during
the C. officinalis winemaking, suggesting that the antioxidant activity of the C. officinalis wine is not exclusively due to some specific bioactive compounds, but
their synergistic effect.
As the main bioactive components in the Corni Fructus,
sweroside and loganin experienced a very similar evolution
during the winemaking (Fig. 6c, d). Overall, both sweroside and loganin had a rapid increase in concentrations
during fermentation stages and then followed by a decrease
until the end of ageing. The decreasing trend of sweroside
and loganin happened on the fifth day of fermentation in
the wines of Wc, while it did on the fermentation day of 27
in Wp, thus suggesting that different fermentation methods
did have an effect on the evolution of sweroside and loganin during winemaking process.

Conclusions
In summary, to the best of our knowledge, this is the first
research that systematically investigated the evolution of
some physicochemical properties of C. officinalis wines
throughout the making process with different fermentation
techniques. Results revealed that most of the parameters
studied might be as feasible indicators to monitor the
wines fermentation status, quality and ageing potential in
oenological industry, and the fermentation technique with
C. officinalis pomace is better than that without it for this
fruit wine.
Considering the continuous decrease in most parameters
during the storage, we do not recommend the C. officinalis
wine for storage with a longer period. Based on the rich
contents of bioactive compounds researched, we can conclude that the C. officinalis wine exhibits some good
health-promoting benefits and could be as an appealing
alcoholic beverage due to the great modifications of the
sour and astringent mouthfeel. In order to speed up its
industrialization, additional investigations on the sensorial
properties, in vivo health promotion function and comparison to red wines would be the focus of our further
studies.
Acknowledgments The project was supported by National Natural
Science Foundation of China (No. 31101324), Natural Science
Foundation of Shaanxi Province, China (No. 2011JQ2003), and the
Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities of China
(No. GK201302039, GK201002014).

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Eur Food Res Technol (2013) 237:711719

Conflict of interest

None.

Compliance with ethics requirements This article does not contain any studies with human or animal subjects.

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