Background
The world-wide occurrence of OTA contamination of raw agricultural products has been amply documented in a variety of plant products and recently OTA has been detected also in wine and grape juice. Fungi responsible for OTA presence were studied especially on cereals where Penicillium verrucosum and A. ochraceus are considered the main producers.
Few studies carried out in EU countries on grape have shown that there is a great variability and a significant morphological and toxicological difference among Aspergillus and Penicillium species occurring on grapes; species associated with cereals seem absent.
Surveys carried out on wine showed a higher OTA concentration in red versus white and rosé wines. A correlation with the latitude of the production region was also demonstrated: the further south the provenance, the more frequent the occurrence and the greater the concentration of OTA.
Wine contribution to mean daily OTA intake cannot be considered negligible: wine alone could supply the diet of an average drinker with an OTA amount equal or even superior to the TDI recommended by the Scientific Committee on Food of the European Commission.

Over-all objective
Assessment of risk of ochratoxin A (OTA) in grape and wine in Europe and protection of the consumer's health by decreasing the amount of toxin with the aid of integrated management of production and processing.

Expected achievements
  1. Determination of the critical control points (CCP) for OTA synthesis during grape production
  2. Specification of critical limits for all CCP
  3. Preventive and corrective actions
  4. Establishment of monitoring systems
  5. Risk assessment and elaboration of a decision support system (DSS)
Description of work
Six European countries and Israel will be included in the project. Twelve groups will contribute to the study, 10 are expert researchers in the field of viticulture, fungal ecology/physiology/ taxonomy, food microbiology, analytical chemistry, diagnostics, food technology, oenology, epidemiology and statistics, while the last 2 guarantee the connection between scientific team and the final users.
The workplan is divided into five major tasks of which the first two consist of data acquisition to define the CCP and factors able to influence them. The third one defines preventive and corrective actions, whose effect can be efficiently controlled (Task 4). Task 5, inclusive of all the others, defines the real risk for OTA presence in grape and wine and gives recommendations for the integrated management of grape production and processing aiming at reducing OTA risk as much as possible.

Expected results
  1. Collections of representative fungal strains from various European geographical origins well characterised for molecular aspects and responsible for OTA synthesis
  2. A list of CCP in grape production and processing with their limits
  3. Suggestions for integrated preventive and corrective actions in reducing OTA risk
  4. Risk assessment for OTA presence on a European scale
Click on the image in order to enlarge the flow-chart diagram of the project: