The influence of ascorbic acid on the composition, colour and flavour properties of a Riesling and a wooded Chardonnay wine during five years' storage

This paper presents the results from an investigation to assess the development of a Riesling and a wooded Chardonnay wine over five years. The wines were bottled either with or without added ascorbic acid and stored under controlled temperature and humidity conditions. Ascorbic acid addition to wine at bottling had little effect on wine aroma and flavour when the wines in this study had been in bottle for 6 months or less. For both wines, at bottle storage times of 3 years or more, addition of ascorbic acid at bottling resulted in wines with no difference in aroma or less oxidised and/or more fresh fruity aromas, even if all the ascorbic acid had been depleted at the time of assessment, compared to wines without addition of ascorbic acid at bottling. In terms of colour, for the Chardonnay wines, the effect of ascorbic acid addition at bottling assessed between two weeks and two years after bottling suggested that wines without addition were browner and had more overall colour intensity. For the Riesling wines, ascorbic acid addition had no significant effect on brownness and overall colour intensity although the Riesling wines with ascorbic acid were generally higher in yellow colour. The A₄₂₀ measurements, which are widely used to estimate the brown colour of wines, did not always appear to correlate with the brown scores obtained by visual assessment or colour measures by CIELAB when wines with and without ascorbic acid addition were compared together. For both wines, after three and five years storage, the concentration of the antioxidant sulfur dioxide was either little different or else slightly(statistically significantly) higher in wines to which ascorbic acid was added at bottling than those without addition.