Chemical investigation of the medical wine “Oinos Tragoriganites” by LC-M

In the Greek "Pharmacopoeia" of 1931, "Medicinal Wine" is defined as the wine in which a medicinal plant has been extracted. However, in the ancient texts of Plinius, Galen and Dioscorides, there are recipes including the co-fermentation of must with several medical plants, resulting in wines claimed to have a broad range of pharmacological properties. In continuation of our efforts to evaluate ancient Greek medical recipes, we investigated the Materia Medica recipe of “Oinos Tragoriganites: Let down four teaspoonfuls of tragoriganum (bound in a linen cloth) into four pints of must [grape pulp] for three months and then jar it. It is good for griping, convulsions, hernias, pains of the side, the movement of winds, and difficulty to digest”.

The plant material (S. thymbra) was collected in the area of Attiki and the model must and model wine were provided by the Agricultural University of Athens. The aerial parts of the plant were used and the fermentations/extractions were carried out under controlled conditions in duplicate. Experimental design included mixture analogies of: a) plant extraction in model wine and b) plant/must co-fermentation. The wine extracts and the co-fermented solutions were then eluted through macroporous resins of different polarity (XAD4 and XAD7), in order to remove the wine/must matrices (mainly sugars and organic/inorganic salts). The adsorbed materials obtained by ethanol elution, were analyzed by UPLC-HRMS/MS and differences were revealed concerning the chemical profile between the co-fermentations, the wine extracts and the hydroalcoholic extracts of S. thymbra.

Publication History

Article published online:
13 December 2021