Preparation of plum wine with reduced alcohol content: Effect of must treatment and blending with sand pear juice on physico-chemical and sensory quality

Abstract

Plum (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">Prunus salicina</i> L.) with attractive colour and flavour, but highly perishable fruit is grown all-over the world including India, holds promise to prepare wine. Attempt to optimize a technique for preparation of low alcoholic plum wine was made. Fruit of Santa rosa plum cultivar were used to produce wine by different methods, viz. conventional method (T₁), must ameliorated with honey (T₂), removal of alcohol from wine by distillation (T₃), inoculation with <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">Schizosaccharomyces pombe</i> to reduce the acidity followed by fermentation with <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">Saccharomyces cerevisiae</i> (T₄) and inoculation with <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">Schizosaccharomyces pombe</i> (T₅) only for deacidifying the must. A comparison of RF (Rate of fermentation) revealed that the must fermented by conventional method (T₁) had the highest RF (0.97) while that of T₅ recorded the lowest RF value. Must ameliorated with honey compared well with the cane sugar based on different parameters of wines examined. On the basis of physico-chemical characteristics, all the treatments except that with <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">Schizosaccharomyces pombe</i> in the pulp (T₅) can successfully be used for wine preparation with better physico-chemical characteristics. Blending of base wines with different proportions of sand pear juice showed that blending at 20 % and 30 % of pear juice not only reduced the alcohol content but also made the blend acceptable with respect to sensory qualities.