foods Article Polyphenolic Composition and In Vitro Antioxidant Activity of Red Grape Seeds as Byproducts of Short and Medium-Long Fermentative Macerations Antonella Bosso 1,* , Claudio Cassino 2 , Silvia Motta 1, Loretta Panero 1, Christos Tsolakis 1 and Massimo Guaita 1 1 Consiglio per la Ricerca in Agricoltura e l’Analisi dell’Economia Agraria—Centro di Ricerca Viticoltura ed Enologia, via P. Micca 35, 14100 Asti, Italy;
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[email protected]; Tel.: +39-0141433813 Received: 22 September 2020; Accepted: 12 October 2020; Published: 13 October 2020 Abstract: The polyphenolic composition and antioxidant activity of grape seeds, as byproducts of red winemaking, depend on various factors, such as grape cultivar, vintage effect, grape maturity and winemaking methods. In the present work, the influence of the maceration length on the polyphenolic and antioxidant characteristics of the seeds of four Italian red grape cultivars (‘Barbera’, ‘Grignolino’, ‘Nebbiolo’, and ‘Uvalino’), sampled from the fermentation tanks after short (two days) and medium-long (7–21 days) macerations, was studied with spectrophotometric methods, high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC), and three different antioxidant assays (2,20-azino-bis-3-ethylbenzothiazoline-6-sulfonic acid (ABTS), ferric reducing antioxidant power (FRAP) and 2,2 diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH)). The total polyphenolic content (gallic acid equivalent (GAE)) of the seeds sampled after short macerations ranged between 24.5 and 60.1 mg/g dry weight (DW), and it dropped to 20.0–37.5 mg/g DW after medium-long macerations.