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As described in this Supplement and elsewhere, consumption of grapes or grape products has been associated with various health benefits. Resveratrol is a unique component of grapes. Following our report on potential cancer chemopreventive activity, thousands of studies have been performed to characterize the mode of action of this substance. Nonetheless, scores of additional chemicals are known to be constituents of grapes, several of which are capable of mediating biological responses. Accordingly, when considering grapes and health, a holistic view appears to be more meaningful, taking into account all chemical components, metabolism, biological potential, biodistribution, absorption, processing, etc. To fathom such a massive amount of information, we propose the creation of focused ontologies. Grapes seem reasonable as a test bed for exploring this approach, especially because a fair amount of results are available with whole-grape powder. In essence, by utilizing a next generation intelligent system, attempts can be made to leverage the existing complexity. This approach involves bringing together all available information, together with expert judgment, and processing this information through a computational 'engine' or engines to provide suggested solutions (or implicit functional relationships). Accomplishment of this task, employing grapes as a prototype, could lead to broader application by incorporating the myriad of features associated with other fruits and vegetables. The ability to correlate heretofore uncharacterized 'signatures' with biologic outcome could fundamentally transform copious amounts of disparate information into a coherent explanation of human disease prevention.

Byline: F. Varela (1), F. Calderon (1), M. C. Gonzalez (1), B. Colomo (1), J. A. Suarez (1) Keywords: Key wordsaMust clarification; Fatty acids; Fermentation; White wine Abstract: aThe effect of different static and dynamic clarification treatments on grape must used in the manufacture of white wines was studied. Turbidity, yeast populations in the musts and must lees, fatty acid composition of the must and must lees after each treatment, and the fermentation kinetics using each cleaned must were measured. Fatty acids not previously found in grape must, such as tridecanoic acid and myristoleic acid, were detected. Dynamic clarification prolonged fermentation, and certain long-chain fatty acids helped activate fermentation. Author Affiliation: (1) Escuela Tecnica Superior de Ingenieros Agronomos, UPM, Ciudad Universitaria s/n, E-28040 Madrid, Spain, ES Article note: Received: 5 October 1998 / Revised version: 8 February 1999

A study published in the December 12, 2007 issue of Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry shows that a class of chemicals in red wine grapes may reduce the ability of bacteria to cause cavities. The study showed that all polyphenolic extracts from grapes inhibited two bacterial glucosyltransferases secreted by Streptococcus mutans, which causes tooth decay.