Color Characterization of Bordeaux Red Wines Produced without Added Sulfites

Nowadays, the development of naturalness as a concept is illustrated in the oenological field by the development of wine produced with lower inputs, sometimes even without any addition of SO₂ throughout the winemaking process, up to the bottling stage. Despite the increase in the offer of these wines, they remain poorly explored in the literature and require characterization. This study was developed to evaluate the color of Bordeaux red wines without SO₂ addition using colorimetric and polymeric pigments analysis. From a batch of commercial Bordeaux red wines with and without SO₂ addition, and experimental wines produced from homogenous grapes according to different winemaking processes, colorimetric analyses (CIELab and color intensity (CI)) revealed a large difference in wine color depending on the presence or absence of SO₂. Indeed, wines without SO₂ were significantly darker and presented with a deeper purplish color. According to these observations, polymeric pigments were quantified using UPLC-DAD/ESI QTof, and a higher concentration of polymeric pigments bound by the ethylidene bridge was observed in wines without SO_2. This correlated with differences observed for CIELab and CI. Finally, a comparison with polymeric tannins bound by ethylidene bridge was made and revealed that no differences were observed between wines with and without added SO₂. This underlines the affinity difference between tannins and anthocyanins to react with acetaldehyde to form ethylidene bridges.