Contribution of Proanthocyanidins to the Peroxy Radical Scavenging Capacity of Some Italian Red Wines

Highly reactive radicals, ROO(*), were generated from 2, 2'-azobis[2-(2-imidazolin-2-yl)propane] and linoleic acid. The ROO(*) scavenging capacity of some Italian red wines was evaluated following the changes in oxygen consumption. Under the experimental conditions the time course of oxygen consumption shows two typical behaviors: trolox-like (class I) and gallic acid-like (class II). Usually the time course of wine was similar to that of gallic acid. The rate of oxygen consumption was found to decrease exponentially with the amount of wine or gallic acid added to the test solution. On this basis the capacity of red wines to scavenge peroxy radicals was expressed as content of gallic acid (S(GA)). The S(GA) values were found to be correlated to the amount of total proanthocyanidins and total polyphenols of some Italian red wines (p < 0.01). The proanthocyanidins extracted from seeds were shown to make a major contribution to the peroxy radical scavenging capacity of red wines, whereas, interestingly, the chemical class of the low molecular weight tannins reactive to vanillin did not correlate with the S(GA) values.