Antioxidant, Functional and Sensory Properties of Wine Produced from Yellow Mombin (Spondias mombin L.) Using a Wild Yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae) from Palm Wine

Yellow mombin is an underutilized indigenous fruit characterized by unique flavor and high sugar content making it suitable for exotic wine production though fermentation. This study was aimed at exploiting the fermentative capability of palm wine Saccharomyces cerevisiae in the production of wine and evaluating the functional, antioxidant and sensory attributes of wine produced from yellow mombin fruit. High ethanol tolerant (14%) Saccharomyces cerevisiae isolated from palm wine was used to ferment yellow mombin ‘must’ for 7 days of primary (aerobic) fermentation and 7 days of secondary (anaerobic) fermentation successively. Wine samples were subjected to microbial analysis, physicochemical analysis and antioxidant capacity assay using standard methods. Sensory attributes of the yellow mombin wine were evaluated adopting the nine-point hedonic scale using commercial indigenous wine as control. At the end of the fermentation, the yeast and coliform populations were at 6.02 and 0.0 log10CFU/ml respectively. The physicochemical values of the yellow mombin wine with respect to pH, titratable acidity, Brixo, specific gravity, alcohol content, temperature were 3.35, 0.89%, 5.70, 1.012, 10.5% (v/v), 28 oC, respectively. The yellow mombin wine had a moisture content of 86.85%, total phenolic content of 19.10 mgGAE/100ml, DPPH (2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl), FRAP (ferric reducing antioxidant power) and ABTS (2,2´-azino-bis(3-ethylbenzothiazoline-6-sulfonate) of 65.12%, 18.35 mgGAE/100ml, and 11.34% respectively. The yellow mombin wine was preferred by the panelists as its overall acceptance rating was 8.5. This study has shown yellow mombin to be good substrate for acceptable table wine production using Saccharomyces cerevisiae from palm wine.