Spectrophotometric assays of total anthocyanins, total phenolics, total catechins, total flavonoids, color intesity
and hue were performed on Merlot wines obtained with 3, 6 and 10 days of maceration, containing 30 and 70 ppm
SO2. Changes of phenolic contents were observed during three stages of the wines: after maceration, after 6 and 16
months in order to check the effect of maceration time, SO2 and storage of the wines. Wines were stored at low and
higher temperature to check also the influence of storage temperature on the studied parameters. It was found that
maceration time influences the content of polyphenol compounds, observing increasing of their concentrations with
increased maceration time, while lower contents were measured in the wines after 16 months of storage (3006, 1732
and 1602 mg/l total phenolics and 478, 188 and 98.5 mg/l total anthocyanins, after maceration, after 6 and 16 months
of storage, respectively, in wine with 30 ppm SO2). SO2 had not a significant effect, whereas higher temperature
caused slight changes of polyphenols contents