Overview of the distinctive characteristics of strawberry, raspberry, and blueberry in berries, berry wines, and berry spirits

Red berries have gained popularity as functional and nutritious food due to their health benefits, leading to increased consumer demand and higher production, totaling over 11,000 ktons for strawberries, raspberries, and blueberries combined in 2021. Nutritionally, strawberries, raspberries, and blueberries present high levels of vitamin C (9.7-58.8 mg/100 g dry weight [dw]), folates (6-24 µg/100 g dw), and minerals (96-228 mg/100 g dw). Due to their perishable nature, producers have utilized alcoholic fermentation to extend their shelf life, not only increasing the lifespan of red berries but also attracting consumers through the production of novel beverages. Strawberry, blueberry, and raspberry wines possess low alcohol (5.5-11.1% v/v), high acidity (3.2-17.6 g/L), and interesting bioactive molecules such as phenolic compounds, carotenoids, polysaccharides, and melatonin. Distillation holds tremendous potential for reducing food waste by creating red berry spirits of exceptional quality. Although research on red berry spirits is still in the early stages, future studies should focus on their production and characterization. By incorporating these factors, the production chain would become more sustainable, profitable, and efficient by reducing food waste, capitalizing on consumer acceptance, and leveraging the natural health-promoting characteristics of these products. Therefore, this review aims to provide a comprehensive overview of the characteristics of strawberry, blueberry, and red raspberry in berries, wines, and spirits, with a focus on their chemical composition and production methods.

Use of Sensory Analysis to Investigate the Influence of Climate Chambers and Other Process Variables in the Production of Sweet Wines

In this study, a climate chamber, as an alternative method, has been used to dry raisins and the sensory profiles of the sweet sherry wines obtained have been evaluated. Other important factors, namely grape variety, vintage, vinification conditions, as well as the ageing method and its length of time, have also been considered. When heavy rainfall had been registered, the musts extracted from grapes dried under controlled conditions in a climate chamber showed a lower intensity of the musty off-odor compared to those elaborated with sun-dried grapes. The wine fermented at low temperature with Saccharomyces bayanus scored the highest in citric and floral notes, and this was preferred over all the other wines that were evaluated. The wines aged in oak barrels were preferred to both, wines aged in the presence of oak chips as well as those aged without any wood contact. The use of climate chambers to dry the grapes that are going to be used for the elaboration of sweet wines appears to be an advantageous alternative to the traditional method, since it allows a more precise control of the process and highly valued sweet wines from a sensory point of view are obtained thereby.

The influence of berry perforation on grape drying kinetics and total phenolic compounds

BACKGROUND

Drying is one of the traditional methods used for the conservation of fruits. In recent years, different methods have been developed to obtain higher quality products. Chamber-drying methods with hot air at controlled temperature are reliable and easy to use. The effect of piercing the structure of grape berries on their drying time was studied experimentally during convective drying within a temperature range of 30-50 °C. Experimental moisture loss results were fitted to different mathematical models, evaluated for goodness of fit by comparing their respective R² , χ² , and root mean square error.

RESULTS

The Midilli et al. model provided a better prediction to describe the drying of whole grapes than the other models evaluated. However, punched grapes showed a better fit for the two-term model at 30 and 40 °C, and the approximation of diffusion model at 50 °C. The values of effective moisture diffusivity fluctuated between 8.04 × 10^-12 and 7.31 × 10^-11  m²  s^-1 . Activation energy was 56.49 and 54.43 kJ mol^-1 for whole and punched grapes, respectively. All the drying processes produced an increase of total phenolic compounds and antioxidant activity in grapes, these increases being higher in whole grape drying.

CONCLUSION

The drying of punched grapes was faster and the activation energy higher than with drying of whole grapes; however, whole grapes presented more total phenolic compounds and antioxidant activity. © 2019 Society of Chemical Industry.