Winemaking waste

The European Union is currently encouraging the use of agri-food by-products as a way of reducing food waste, while promoting the utilisation of organic resources and innovation. Portugal is an important wine producer, with exports on the rise, demonstrating the dynamism of the sector. Wine and vines contain compounds with a wide range of biological properties that can be extracted. Polyphenols are an example of highly relevant bioactive compounds, with different physiological properties, such as antioxidant, cardioprotective and anti-cancer properties, among others. As such, the by-products and waste from wine production have diverse potential applications, such as functional foods, pharmaceutical products and cosmetics. The benefits of drinking red wine are already recognised and are associated with the presence of certain polyphenolic compounds, but these are not enough to characterise wine as a functional food. For this reason, interest in functional ingredients based on wine and grapevine extracts has been growing, fuelling the concept of sustainability.