Influence of environmental and technological parameters on phenolic composition in red wine

This review discusses some of the parameters that influence the content of polyphenols in red wine. Best quality grapes, sunny weather and late harvest increases the total phenolic content in wine as well as high-phenolic content grape cultivar. Nevertheless, if the extraction technique is not efficient the resulting wine will be poor in these compounds. Mash heating followed by fermentation on skin, pre-fermentating enzymatic treatment and long maceration time are processes increasing the concentration of polyphenols in the resulting wine while oxygen supply during storage reduces the total content of low molecular weight phenolic compounds and increases the polyphenols polymers that only seems to stabilize the wine's color.