Role of polyphenols in copper complexation in red wines

Four monovarietal red wines, Tinta Roriz, Tinta Barroca, Touriga Nacional, and Touriga Francesa, were studied for their complexometric properties toward copper. For the purpose, ion selective electrode potentiometric titrations were carried out, and the data were treated by two methods suitable for heterogeneous ligands: the Scatchard plot, which provided the complexation capacity (CC(total) = maximum number of moles of sites per liter), and the differential equilibrium function (DEF), which provided the conditional stability constants of the sites effectively involved in the metal complexation (K(DEF)) at a given titration point. The different wines displayed similar properties: CC(total) ranged from 4.5x10(-3) (Tinta Barroca) to 4.9x10(-3) M (Touriga Francesa), and log K(DEF) values were between 4.2 and 6.5. The range of log(|Cu|(bound)/CC(total)) = log theta embraced in the titration was between -0.2 and -1.9. With regard to the natural levels of copper, from 4.4x10(-7) (Tinta Roriz) to 1.3x10(-6) M (Touriga Nacional), and ligands (CC(total)) in the wines, it can be expected that copper will be strongly complexed in the studied wines (log K(DEF) > 6). Studies carried out, in parallel, for solutions of isolated seed tannins and skin polyphenols (mainly anthocyans) showed that their contribution to the CC(total) of the wines was <40% for tannins and <2% for skin polyphenols. However, skin polyphenols were shown to be much stronger copper ligands (log K(DEF) = 6.7, log theta = -1.5) than tannins (log K(DEF) = 4.5, log theta = -1.5).