It obtains oenological products that, if incorporated into the wines, can be consumed by vegans and people with allergies.
The project ‘Wine Balance, Improving the Colloidal Structure of Wine: New Bioactive Instruments of Interest’ enabled the La Mancha company, Productos Agrovin SA, thanks to its close collaboration with the Agrochemistry and Food Technology Research Group of the UMU – led by Professors Encarna Gómez Plaza and Ana Belén Bautista Ortín–, to launch new oenological products for use in the winemaking process in response to market demand.
The project focuses on the development and characterization of new bioactive tools – evolved yeasts and new polymer formulations – that allow an improvement of the structure and body of the wine and its sensory profile.
It included the laboratory-scale and industrial-scale validation of those instruments found to be more effective in line with initially planned objectives.
Among the new products developed under this collaboration, the development of improved fining agents stands out. Clarifiers are products of great importance in winemaking as they allow for clean and clear wines, without cloudiness.
Thus achieved the development of ‘Proveget PREMIUM’, a product based on pea protein with a high purification efficiency, which also removes unwanted compounds that turn brown in must when used in the flotation and static purification process, an essential stage in the process. of making white or rosé wines. “This will allow the substitution of potentially allergic proteins of animal origin, thus avoiding the legal obligation to indicate their presence on the label, and it will also make it possible to obtain wines that can be consumed by the vegan population”, says Professor Gómez Plaza.
Another product resulting from this project is ‘Microstab Protect’, whose formulation based on chitosan and yeasts enriched with glutathione makes it possible to significantly reduce the microbial populations present and also slows down the evolution and aging of treated wines, as an alternative for the use of sulfur during the vinification process.
“Sulphur is considered an allergen and current European regulations require its presence to be indicated on the label. Therefore, more and more oenologists are limiting its use during the different stages of winemaking,” the researcher adds.
Both products have already been marketed by Agrovin. Their innovative nature allows them to respond to a growing demand from different populations that increasingly require specific products that meet their needs and expectations, including the aforementioned vegans and people with allergies to certain foods. Another advantage for the company is the possibility to gain a larger market share with these new products and to diversify the reference portfolio it makes available to wine-producing companies. This project has a budget of almost 500,000 euros and has recently been completed. after 36 months of research and development. It is co-funded by CDTI and by the EU through Feder funds.
Source: La Verdad
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