Polysaccharide Patterns During the Aging of Carignan noir Red Wines

Abstract

A new method for the quantification of polysaccharides in wines has been applied to a series of Carignan noir red wines produced in 1996,1991,1989,1986,1981, and 1974. In parallel, the molecular weight distributions of polysaccharides have been followed by high-resolution size exclusion chromatography on a Superdex-75 HR column. Glycosyl-residue composition analyses revealed the presence of mannans, arabinogalactans, rhamnogalacturonans and galacturonans in all wines studied. Mannans were globally stable during the 23-year period studied, while the amount of pectic polysaccharides decreased slowly. Type II arabinogalactans and rhamnogalacturonan II decreased after approximately 15 years of storage. The homogalacturonan oligomers decreased dramatically during aging of wines. Small amounts of polysaccharides could be found in the insoluble pellet, indicating that slow hydrolytic phenomenon rather than solubilization may be involved in the slow decrease of polysaccharide concentration in wines.