Diversifying the Regional Wine Industry Through Sustainably Grown Sambucus

The aim of this project is to rigorously test the viability of Sambucus grown for utilization by theregional wine industry. The key objectives of this project are: 1) Evaluation of enological factorsand vinification techniques to optimize the winemaking processes; 2) Standardization ofbenchmarks for the nutraceutical value of the farm products before and after conversion to wine;and 3) Assessment of organic cultivation and postharvest processing methods for the crop inFlorida. The economic benefits to the regional wine industry of the Southeastern US will becommunicated through outreach and documentation on organic cultivation postharvest handlingand processing and the crop's nutritional and compositional quality standards as required forlong-term expansion of the crop. Muscadine wines dominate the wine making industry of Floridain the category of wines produced directly from fruit grown in-state. Sambucus has a longpreindustrial tradition of use in wine and is particularly well suited for conversion into modernwines today if only it were to be properly marketed in this manner. The successful execution ofthe proposed project will involve detailed documentation of the factors which are most importantto the use of Sambucus for both its own class of wines as the singular fruit constituent and itsaddition as an ingredient to muscadine wine blends for increasing color stability tannins androbust flavor. The specific innovation addressed here is the development of the quality standardsof a functional food as a value-added product utilizing the vehicle of a proven product category:wine.