Antioxidant properties of Chinese yellow wine, its concentrate and volatiles

Yellow wine (YW) has been claimed to have beneficial effects on the prevention of cancer and cardiovascular disease, which are related to the oxidation activity in vivo. In this study, the antioxidant activity of YW and its concentrate and volatile compounds (VC) was determined in terms of total antioxidant, reducing capacity, free radical scavenging, metal chelating and superoxide anion radical scavenging activities. These various antioxidant activities were compared with synthetic antioxidant, such as butylated hydroxyanisole (BHA) and butylated hydroxytoluene (BHT). The total phenolic compounds were also determined. Results indicated that YW and its concentrate exhibited similar strong total antioxidant activity. The inhibition percentage of 100 μl of YW and its concentrate on peroxidation of 2.5 ml of linoleic acid emulsion was 97.99% and 95.74%, and both of them also had effective reducing capacity, 1,1-diphenyl-2-picryl-hydrazyl (DPPH) radical scavenging and superoxide anion radical scavenging activities, but had very low metal chelating activity on ferrous. However, the VC in YW had little antioxidant activities. Results indicated that active antioxidants were nonvolatile and resided in the concentrate after evaporation. Phenolic compounds may play a very important role in the antioxidant function. However, identification of specific antioxidant components should be further investigated.