Randox Food Diagnostics Launches New Kit to Test for Total Sulphite in Wine

During wine making sulfur is used as an essential additive as it plays two important roles as an anti-oxidant (prevents enzymatic browning) and anti-microbial (protects against wine spoilage) preservative in its free form. It can have an inhibitory effect on all yeast strains especially ‘wild’ strains as well as effecting malolactic fermentation by MLF bacteria in high doses.

Due to SO₂ becoming inactive when it binds with color pigments of wine and the increased awareness of the effects of sulfites together with the prevalence of sulfite intolerance in some individuals, it has become valuable for wine makers to measure both the free and total SO₂. For these reasons, legal limits have been set for maximum permitted levels of SO₂ in wines.

In Europe the legal limits of _SO2 in wine are 160 mg/L for red wine, 210 mg/L for white wine and rose, and 400 mg/L for sweet wines. The USA and Australia have legal limits of 350 mg/L and 250 mg/L, respectively.

Naturally occurring levels of SO₂ in wines are usually found around 10-20mg/L. All wines containing sulfites greater than 10mg/L must have a statement added to the label making the consumer aware that sulfite in present.

As a result, Randox Food Diagnostics has developed a test kit available for manual, semi-automated and automated analyzers to test total sulfites in wine.

Total sulfite benefits:
• Results within 6 minutes
• Sensitivity of 5mg/L
• Linear to a concentration of 500mg/L
• Excellent recovery across entire analytical range