Wine Literature Review Lightning Round: 1st Edition

There’s no way one single person (even if that person is The Academic Wino!) can possibly review every single piece of peer reviewed literature related to wine that is published every day.  This new series presents a few new papers (within the past year) in one post by briefly summarizing the research and linking to the source in order for you to pursue further if you’re interested.  If there is enough interest, be it through comments or emails, I can review any of the papers introduced to you in this post in a more critical assessment.  Enjoy!

HEALTH:

“Resveratrol metabolites have an antiproliferative effect on intestinal epithelial cancer cells”.  This article, published in Food Chemistry in 2012, examined three metabolites (i.e. metabolized version of) of resveratrol on the inhibition of cell growth and cell death using a human cancer cell line.  By introducing the resveratrol to petri dishes of human colon cancer cells, the authors found that all three metabolized forms of resveratrol inhibited cell growth in the cancer cells, and increased cell death in cancer cells.  The authors also confirmed that

By Unknown photographer [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

By Unknown photographer [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

the antioxidant capacity of the metabolized versions of the resveratrol was similar to unaltered resveratrol, indicating that even after the resveratrol has been metabolized by the body; it can still be effective against the spread and survival of human cancer cells.  The authors concluded that these results indicate resveratrol could be an effective treatment against colon cancer.

Source: Storniolo, C.E., and Moreno, J.J. 2012. Resveratrol metabolites have an antiproliferative effect on intestinal epithelial cancer cells. Food Chemistry 134: 1385-1391.

ENOLOGY / WINE MAKING:

“Effect of commercial mannoproteins on wine colour and tannins stability”.  This article, published in Food Chemistry (this journal has a ton of great wine articles, by the way) in 2012, examined the effects of commercial mannoproteins (used for preventing tartrate precipitation in wine) on the color and tannin stability of red wine.  Using two Touriga National wines, one

By CDC [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

By CDC [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Alfrocheiro wine, and one Aragonês wine, the authors found that commercial mannoproteins had no influence on wine color stability.  On the other hand, they found that commercial mannoproteins may have a stabilizing effect on tannin evolution, specifically a delay in the polymerization of tannins in red wine.  The authors concluded that these results could help winemakers to utilize commercial mannoproteins for tannin stabilization, but perhaps not for color stabilization.

Source: Rodrigues, A., Ricardo-Da-Silva, J.M., Lucas, C., and Laureano, O. 2012. Effect of commercial mannoproteins on wine colour and tannins stability. Food Chemistry 131: 907-914.

 

WINE BUSINESS

“Let’s Talk About Wine: Does Twitter Have Value?”.  This article, published in the International Journal of Wine Business Research in 2012, examined exactly how wine was being discussed on the social media platform Twitter, and whether or not Twitter could be used to create economic value for wine investors.  This research was exploratory nature, and analyzed 1500 tweets about wine written in English.  The results of the study showed that Twitter had a positive influence on “soft value” for the wine business, but results for an influence of Twitter on “hard value” for the wine business was inconclusive.

In other words, Twitter appears to have a positive effect on the brand-building and brand-awareness for wine and wineries, by the simple mechanism of individuals tweeting about how they liked (or disliked) a particular wine or how they just finished visiting one of their favorite wineries, just to name a couple of examples (“soft value”).  “Hard value”, on the other hand, relates to actual wine sales as a direct result of someone tweeting about a particular wine, which

By EnoW (File:Twitter Logo.svg) [CC0], via Wikimedia Commons

By EnoW (File:Twitter Logo.svg) [CC0], via Wikimedia Commons

according to this study was found to be inconclusive.  The authors concluded that there is a lot of room for improvement in the Twitter realm, and the results show that wineries and the wine business in general would benefit (either directly or indirectly) through Twitter campaigns, be it through personal accounts, or even through the marketing campaigns on the company Twitter account.

Source: Wilson, D., and Quinton, S. 2012. Let’s Talk About Wine: Does Twitter Have Value?”.  International Journal of Wine Business Research 24(4): 271-286.