High hydrostatic pressure treatment: An artificial accelerating aging method which did not change the region and variety non-colored phenolic characteristic of red wine

The effect of high hydrostatic pressure (HHP) treatment on the region and variety non-colored phenolic characteristics of red wine was investigated in this study. After HHP treatment, many changes occurred in the non-colored phenolic compounds in red wines. Changes in total phenolic acids and the contents of eleven phenolic acids among different regions and varieties varied and showed an overall upward trend, while chlorogenic acid decreased in several wines. The total flavan-3-ols and five flavan-3-ols largely decreased among the different regions and different varieties, while EGC slightly increased. In addition, HHP treatment did not change the grape variety and grape geographic origin discrimination based on phenolic acids and flavan-3-ols, which suggests that HHP treatment had no effect on the region and variety of non-colored phenolic characteristics of red wine. These results could expedite the use of HHP processing in the wine industry.Industrial relevanceHHP is an important technology which could simulate the traditional aging process in wine industry and could shorten a lot of time and save great economic costs. However, no HHP-treated wine has been introduced in the market throughout the world so far. This is due, in large part, to the lack of correlation studies. In this study, we proved that HHP didn't change grape variety and grape geographic origin phenolic characteristics, hence it could be used in geographic indication wines and varietal wines. With these results, we hope HHP technology could be successfully used in wine industry as early as possible.