Temperate fruit wines from non-grape sources of Western Himalayan region of India

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Somesh Sharma and VK Joshi

Shoolini University of Biotechnology and Management Sciences, India

: J Food Nutr Disor

Abstract

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Fruits are employed to produce different types of fruit wines and their distillates called as brandies. Wines have been used as therapeutic agent. Moderate consumption of low levels of alcohol has been associated with lowered mortality from coronary heart diseases. Wines also serve as an important adjunct to the human diet by increasing the satisfaction, provide relaxation necessary for proper digestion and absorption of food, and have glucose tolerance factor (GTF) which stimulate insulin production in curing of diabetes. Production and consumption of fermented beverages like wines is an ancient practice, but that of fruit based distilled alcoholic beverages however, is a later development. Wines are made from complete or partial alcoholic fermentation of grape or any other fruit like apple, plum, peach, pear, berries, cherries, currants, apricot. Compared to the quantity of grape wine produced and consumed in the world, the amount of wine produced from non-grape fruits is insignificant, except cider and perry which are produced and consumed in significant amounts throughout the world. General principles involved in wine making from grapes have been discussed threadbare in various researches. But there is very less data on wines from other temperate fruits. Temperate fruits are highly perishable commodities and have to be either consumed immediately or preserved in one or the other form. In the developed countries, a considerable quantity of fruit is utilized, but in developing countries like India, lack of proper utilization results in considerable postharvest losses, estimated to be 30-40 percent. The increased production can be soaked profitably, if fruit wines are produced. Setting - up of fruit wineries besides industrialization of the fruit growing belts could result in economic upliftment of the people, generating employment opportunities and providing better returns of their produce to the orchardists. Availability of technology is the single most important factor determining the production though cost and type of the product is also a significant consideration in popularising the product. So production of temperate fruit wines in India where fruits other than grape are grown would certainly be advantageous. To prepare wine from grape, the technology is well standardized and wine production is an established industry in the grape producing countries of the world. Basic technique for production of fruit wines is essentially the same involving the routine alcoholic fermentation of juice or the pulp but modifications with respect to the physico-chemical characteristics, depending upon the type of wine to be prepared and the fruit used. The major differences in the techniques of production of these wines arise because of difficulty to extract the sugar from the pulp of some of the fruits. The juices/pulps obtained from most of the non-grape fruits are lacking in the requisite sugar content or has poor fermentability. The higher acidity in some of the fruits makes all the more difficult to prepare the wine of acceptable qualities. The fermentation of such fruits is very slow or may even before completion due to lack of certain nitrogenous compounds or other yeast growth factors in the pear or other fruit juices. As per the studies conducted on various temperate wines, the wines are highly nutritive with good amount of phenolic compounds, esters, tannins etc. hence from the discussion it can be concluded that wine making from these fruits can be one of the alternative to utilize these crops for production of diversified alcoholic drink

Biography

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E-mail: someshsharma@shooliniuniversity.com