No wine free of alcohol, KWASU Don declares

A Professor of Industrial and Food Microbiology, Prof. Sunday Awe, of the Kwara State University (KWASU) has said that no wine is produced without alcohol, it is only de-alcoholized.

Prof. Awe made the declaration on Wednesday in Malete, while delivering the 11th Inaugural Lecture of the institution titled ”From the field to the bottles: Works of the invisible creatures”.

The Don said de-alcoholized wines contains less that 1 percent alcohol and that very fine de-alcoholized wines can have as low as 0.05 percent, but rarely 0.0 percent.

”What people parade as non-alcoholic wines in our shopping malls are actually fruit juice or sparkling drinks in wine bottles with addition of flavours, preservatives and indication of expiry dates.

”Whereas real wine does not contain preservatives and expiry date, since the alcoholic content serves as it’s preservative, and the longer it stays, the better the taste,” he said.

The professor however noted that Nigeria also has the potential to join the league of countries known for wine production, if deliberate effort is made to maximize the potential of many fruits available in the country.

He therefore recommended that locally available fruits should be used to produce wines that are comparable to imported ones.

”In view of the toxicological effect of alcohol, the alcohol in the wine should be distilled off and used for other non-consumptive purpose.

”The nutrients lost due to lack of storage facility for fruits can be harnesses by turning to wine and foreign exchanged can be earned by producing wines locally for export instead of importing wines.

”To maximize the benefits of local production of the fruit wine, it is recommended that the fruit wine is produced during it’s season, since fruits are seasonal in regions of fruit abundance,” he said.

The Don also recommended that sorghum grains should be used as natural substrate for the production of anthocyanin under a five day solid state fermentation using Pantoea dispersal strain LMG 2603 as a means of increasing the yield of anthocyanin.

”This will help in solving the problem of anthocyanin deficiency.

”Further research should be carried out to measure the antioxidant activity of the anthocyanin, exploration of its anti-cancer effect and the purification of the produced anthocyanin,” Prof. Awe said.