Your glass of wine could give you more than a hangover

For some of us, the thought of a glass of wine on a Friday night is what keeps us going when the Wednesday afternoon slump hits. While not all of us spend our Friday nights quaffing French wine, a new study into the contamination of French wines and spirits could have consumers rethinking their end-of-week tipple.

French researchers have found that the majority of French wines contain phthalates - compounds that are considered to have potential as hormone disruptors. The use of phthalates is regulated on an international level and includes those likely to come into contact with food and drink packaging.

The researchers found that 59% of the wines analysed contained significant quantities of one particular form of phthalate, dibutyl phthalate, and only 17% did not contain any detectable quantity of at least one of the reproductive phthalates.

A more worrying finding was that 11% of the wines analysed did not comply with EU specific migration limits (SMLs) for materials in contact with foods.

The results of the study were published in ‘Food Additives and Contaminants: Part A’.

The study also analysed a variety of materials often found in wineries and found that a large number of polymers often contained high quantities of phthalates. The researchers recommended the discontinuation of the use of containers coated in epoxy resin.

The full article is available here.