Wine drinkers of the world rejoice. Not only can red wine be tasty but it might make for a good risk management decision. If you’re eating something that is contaminated with Bacillus cereus that is (and is not all that contaminated).

According to a paper by Vaz and colleagues published this month in Food Control, red wine’s phenolic compounds coupled with the ethanol content do have an inactivation effect on vegetative cells as well as spores.

The antimicrobial effect of wine on Bacillus cereus in simulated gastro-intestinal conditions
Food Control

Volume 28, Issue 2, December 2012, Pages 230–236

This study aimed to evaluate the antimicrobial activity of wine against Bacillus cereus vegetative cells and spores. The results clearly show that wine exerts a strong inactivation effect against vegetative cells of B. cereus. The red wine tested inactivated stationary phase cultures to undetectable numbers in less than 10 s. Thus, further inactivation assays were carried out with wine diluted with water (1:4 and 1:8). Diluted wine 1:4 caused a reduction of approximately 5 log cycles on viable cell counts in 20 s. On the other hand, B. cereus spores were found to be highly resistant to wine exposure. The influence of wine components (organic acids, ethanol and phenolic compounds) was investigated on vegetative cells. The wine organic acids tested exhibited a strong inactivation effect, and, when combined with ethanol, a slight synergistic effect was observed. The wine phenolic compounds assayed displayed no activity against the vegetative cells at the concentrations tested. At the simulated gastric conditions studied (in the presence of food), wine diminished considerably the number of B. cereus viable cells in addition to the effect of the synthetic gastric fluid. The behaviour of B. cereus spores under gastro-intestinal conditions was also evaluated. In a consumption-like scenario, the addition of wine led to lower total counts (vegetative cells + spores) of B. cereus in the simulated intestine conditions, showing that wine inhibits the proliferation of the vegetative cells obtained from the germination of spores. This work provides evidence that consumption of wine during a meal may diminish the number of viable cells of B. cereus and reduces the impact of the germination of spores that may occur in the small intestine, thus lowering the risk of toxi-infection that may be caused by this pathogen.

The protective nature of alcoholic drinks (greater than 10% alcohol content) has anecdotally been described in an outbreak situation. In a 1992 Hepatitis A virus-linked outbreak those who drank at the same time as eating the contaminated oysters were less likely to be infected with the pathogen.