Can fruit wines be considered as functional food?—An overview

314-322We are in midst of antioxidant superfood revolution. Nutritional studies on examining the foods for their protective and disease preventing potential have established that apart from grapes, fruits like cranberry, sweet cherry, blue berry are equal or sometimes better sources of flavonoids and phenolics. These facts have given a new dimension to the non-grape wines or fruit wines. A lot of efforts have been directed towards potential use of these fruits for production of wines which are rich in phenolics and flavonoids. This paper presents an overview on the phenolic and flavonoid contents of the non-grape wines or fruit wines and their antioxidant potency. It has also been tried to answer the question, whether fruit wines can also be considered as functional food