A bibliometric study to unravel the scientific research in grape and wine phenolic compounds

Abstract

A significant amount of the viticulture and oenology research is dedicated to the antioxidant nature and the organoleptic role played by phenolic compounds. Despite the effort and the large amount of published information, the understanding of the phenolic compounds chemical features and the role played by these relevant group of compounds on the wine quality still remains inconclusive. A critical evaluation of the scientific research that is currently published on the topic could be obtained through bibliometric analysis. Quantitative methods are applied to evaluate measurable outcomes of research activity. The information is obtained from research papers published in scientific journals contained in databases. The Web of Science Core Collection (WOS) database from Clarivate Analytics was used to perform a bibliometric study to evaluate the scientific structure in the phenolic compounds topic. However, the bibliometric search was restricted to provide an exclusive approach to grape and wine phenolics from a pure winegrowing and winemaking perspective. The results showed that a considerable amount of work was dedicated to understand the organoleptic role played by phenolic compounds. Secondly, despite the large body of knowledge found for the role these compounds play on the astringency and bitterness, it is foreseen that intense research efforts will be dedicated towards a more complete understanding of this phenomena. Finally, based on the results observed it can be theorized that the future research endeavours will focus on the comprehension of wine flavour compounds, in which phenolic compounds are expected to play an important role.