The origin of pinking phenomena in white wines: An update

Abstract

Pinking is the term used to describe the appearance of a salmon-red blush color that may appear in bottled white wines, produced solely from white grape varieties. It is perceived as an undesirable phenomenon for both, wine consumers and winemakers. Although with seasonal and regional variations, the pinking has been observed worldwide, with predominance in white wines produced from Vitis vinifera L. grape varieties. The pinking origin of Síria white grapes has been studied in detail and it has been shown that the origin of the pinking phenomenon in white wines from Vitis vinifera L. Síria grape variety are anthocyanins, mainly malvidin-3-O-glucoside. The minimum amount of anthocyanins needed for the visualization of the wine pink color was 0.3 mg/L. Further studies in other white monovarietal wines that occasionally suffer from this defect, like white wine from Malvasia Fina grape variety, Loureiro grape variety, Sauvignon Blanc grape variety and Albariño grape variety, have shown that this wines produced from this grape varieties also show low amounts of anthocyanins, mainly malvidin-3-O-glucoside. These results show that the presence of low but visible detectable anthocyanins as the origin of the pinking phenomena is also observed in other white grape varieties besides that of Síria.