Antioxidant Composition of a Selection of Italian Red Wines and Their Corresponding Free-Radical Scavenging Ability

This study correlates the antioxidant composition profiles and the overall antioxidant capacities of 36 Italian red wine samples. The samples were fully characterized by chromatographic and spectrophotometric techniques. The overall antioxidant capacity was determined by titrating a solution of the semistable free radical DPPH (1,1-diphenyl-2-picrylhydrazyl) with each wine sample followed by Electron Paramagnetic Resonance (EPR) spectroscopy and then measuring the resulting decrease in DPPH-signal. The antioxidant activities of the samples were expressed as (+)-catechin equivalents and related to their antioxidant composition profiles. Samples with a high polyphenol content showed a high DPPH scavenging ability as well. Seven well-defined groups, mainly constituted by wines coming from the same cultivar, were evidenced by PCA analysis. Alcohol content and pH did not influence the wine DPPH scavenging ability. The most important variables contributing to the wines' antioxidant power are total flavonoid, total phenol, and proanthocyanidin indices together with fertaric acid, trans-caftaric acid, trans-coutaric acid, and both quercetin glucoside and quercetin glucuronide. EPR is demonstrated to be faster than the other analytical methods (spectrophotometric and chromatographic analyses) to determine the wine overall antioxidant activity.