Science & Wine

TANQUE is a familiar project aimed to spread with love all the best that our land gives us. We will deliver from the soil to your table, vegetables, and fruit and also some homemade products like jams and chutneys. Buy now!

Health warning labels on wine bottles and how they influence perceived risk of consumption

January 16, 2022January 16, 2022 Paula Silva

Wine is an essential part of European culture. Unfortunately, the consumption of alcohol, such as wine, can have negative health effects. Health warning labels (HWLs) are increasingly presented as a measure to warn consumers of the threat alcohol poses to their health. At present, only a few countries in Europe have introduced mandatory HWLs on wine bottles. This may be due to the cultural and economic significance of wine and the European public’s refusal to accept HWLs on a product like wine. To investigate this issue, the authors conducted an online experiment in the German-speaking part of Switzerland and assessed the perception of risk in participants who were presented wine bottles featuring different types of HWLs. They also studied how health beliefs and cultural worldviews influence the perception and acceptance of HWLs. The study revealed a small effect of HWLs on consumers’ risk perception. There was no difference between a simple text-only HWL and a label featuring a deterring picture (image-and-text HWL). The major determinants of HWL acceptability were cultural worldviews and health beliefs. That is, participants who opposed government intervention for collective wellbeing and espoused a belief in the health benefits of wine were less likely to accept HWLs on wine. More research is needed to assess the effectiveness of HWLs in real-life situations and the importance of culture to the acceptance of such a public intervention measure.

2021 In Numbers

January 2, 2022January 2, 2022 Paula Silva

One single image, with a lot of meaning!

Ancient origins of modern wines

December 26, 2021January 4, 2022 Paula Silva

Wine was being made almost 8.000 years ago! The earliest known wine remains, which were discovered in clay jars from the South Caucasus in Georgia, have been attested by chemical analysis to date to ca. 6.000–5.800 BCE. This agrees with climatic and environmental reconstructions, as well as with archaeobotanical evidence, which points to Georgia being the cradle of viticulture and wine making (McGovern et al. 2017). Not far from Georgia, in the Zagros Mountains in northwestern Iran, wine remains dated to ca. 5.400 BCE have been preserved in pottery vessels together with traces of resin, which might have been added as a preservative (McGovern 2003). This suggests that early Iranian wine had a similar taste to the Greek retsina of today, to which pine resin is added during the fermentation process. Does this mean that all ancient wines had this resinated taste? Not necessarily! The ancient written sources, when approached from an oenological point of view, suggest that ancient Greek and Roman wine makers were quite advanced, as they could produce many of the drinks that we know today.

A weight-loss Mediterranean diet/lifestyle intervention improves inflammatory and oxidative stress markers of patients with obstructive sleep apnea

January 23, 2022January 23, 2022 Paula Silva

Inflammation and oxidative stress are implicated in obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) pathophysiology. We aimed at exploring whether the combination of a weight-loss Mediterranean diet/lifestyle intervention with OSA standard care, i.e., continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) prescription, can lead to greater improvements in inflammation and oxidative stress, compared to standard care alone. This was a randomized controlled clinical trial in 187 adult, overweight patients with moderate-to-severe OSA. Participants were randomized to a standard care (SCG, n = 65), a Mediterranean diet (MDG, n = 62) or a Mediterranean lifestyle group (MLG, n = 60). All groups received OSA standard care. Intervention arms participated in a 6-month behavioral weight-loss intervention based on the Mediterranean diet, while the MLG also received counselling on physical activity and sleep habits. A weight-loss Mediterranean diet/lifestyle intervention on top of CPAP has anti-inflammatory and antioxidant benefits in OSA.

Olive mill wastewater as a functional resource of bioactive compounds for Agro-Food Industries

January 9, 2022January 9, 2022 Paula Silva

Olive oil production represents an agro-industrial activity of vital economic importance for many Mediterranean countries. However, it is associated with the generation of a huge amount of by-products, both in solid and liquid forms, mainly constituted by olive mill wastewater, olive pomace, wood, leaves, and stones. Although for many years olive by-products have only been considered as a relevant environmental issue, in the last decades, numerous studies have deeply described their antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, immunomodulatory, analgesic, antimicrobial, antihypertensive, anticancer, anti-hyperglycemic activities. Therefore, the increasing interest in natural bioactive compounds represents a new challenge for olive mills. Studies have focused on optimizing methods to extract phenols from olive oil by-products for pharmaceutical or cosmetic applications and attempts have been made to describe microorganisms and metabolic activity involved in the treatment of such complex and variable by-products. However, few studies have investigated olive oil by-products in order to produce added-value ingredients and/or preservatives for food industries. This post is based in a review which provides an overview of the prospective of liquid olive oil by-products as a source of high nutritional value compounds to produce new functional additives or ingredients and to explore potential and future research opportunities.