{"id":7385,"date":"2019-04-05T07:32:50","date_gmt":"2019-04-05T06:32:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/161.116.26.48\/?p=7385"},"modified":"2019-04-05T11:28:28","modified_gmt":"2019-04-05T10:28:28","slug":"new-method-to-reduce-alcohol-volume-and-content-in-wine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fbg.ub.edu\/en\/news\/new-method-to-reduce-alcohol-volume-and-content-in-wine\/","title":{"rendered":"New method to reduce alcohol volume and content in wine"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Climate change is leading to more dry and hot summers, a phenomenon that favours an early ripening of grapes and higher concentrations of sugars. This increment of sugars results in wines with a higher alcohol content, which has a negative impact on wine quality as well as on consumer health and response.<\/p>\n<p>In this context, de-alcoholising wines has become a challenge for the wine industry. A team from the University of Barcelona (UB) led by Joan Llorens, a professor of chemical engineering, has developed a new technique to lower the alcohol content of wine without altering either the taste or the aromas. &#8220;The process is designed to reduce the alcohol content of wine to levels that make it much healthier and reduce its caloric content, but without substantially losing its organoleptic features,&#8221; explains Joan Llorens.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Preventing the evaporation of aromas<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>One of the most common ways to reduce the alcohol content of wine is distillation, a thermal process in which the compounds of a liquid with different boiling points are separated by heating the initial mixture. However, heating wine, even at low temperatures, inevitably leads to the loss of aromas. &#8220;De-alcoholisation by means of this new technique does not use temperature changes, and thus preserves volatile aromas&#8221;, explains Joan Llorens.<\/p>\n<p>Llorens adds, &#8220;In addition, this new technique is neither so complex nor does it require the same high-tech investment as other techniques such as the spinning cone column, in which distillation plays a key role.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Less environmental impact<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The new method is more efficient than other processes such as reverse osmosis, which is also currently used. &#8220;Reverse osmosis is used to lower the alcohol content of wine by means of osmosis membranes and hydraulic pressure. Instead, the methodology we have developed is based on a process known as direct osmosis, which uses special osmosis membranes and does not rely on hydraulic pressure, making it more energetically efficient,&#8221; Llorens concludes.\u00a0Researchers have already developed a prototype, which has shown the effectiveness and viability of this new methodology. The UB team is now looking for an industrial partner to transfer this promising technique to industry.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-5605\" src=\"http:\/\/www.fbg.ub.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/FEDER_senselema-380x53.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"380\" height=\"53\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.fbg.ub.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/FEDER_senselema-380x53.jpg 380w, https:\/\/www.fbg.ub.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/FEDER_senselema-768x108.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.fbg.ub.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/FEDER_senselema-1024x144.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.fbg.ub.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/FEDER_senselema.jpg 1629w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 380px) 100vw, 380px\" \/>\u00a0 \u00a0<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-3327\" src=\"http:\/\/www.fbg.ub.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/GENERALITAT-SUR-380x55.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"380\" height=\"55\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.fbg.ub.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/GENERALITAT-SUR-380x55.jpg 380w, https:\/\/www.fbg.ub.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/GENERALITAT-SUR-768x111.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.fbg.ub.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/GENERALITAT-SUR-1024x148.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.fbg.ub.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/GENERALITAT-SUR.jpg 1207w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 380px) 100vw, 380px\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Climate change is leading to more dry and hot summers, a phenomenon that favours an early ripening of grapes and&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":7386,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7385","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fbg.ub.edu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7385","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fbg.ub.edu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fbg.ub.edu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fbg.ub.edu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fbg.ub.edu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7385"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.fbg.ub.edu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7385\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7398,"href":"https:\/\/www.fbg.ub.edu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7385\/revisions\/7398"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fbg.ub.edu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7386"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fbg.ub.edu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7385"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fbg.ub.edu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7385"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fbg.ub.edu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7385"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}