Research Article Response Surface Optimization of Cactus Pear (Opuntia ficus-indica) with Lantana camara (L. camara) Fruit Fermentation Process for Quality Wine Production Zenebe Tadesse Tsegay 1,2 and Solomon Mengistu Lemma 3 1 College of Natural and Computational Science, Department of Chemistry, Aksum University, P.O. Box 1010, Aksum, Ethiopia 2 College of Dryland Agriculture and Natural Resources, Department of Food Science and Post-Harvest Technology, Mekelle University, P.O. Box 231, Mekelle, Ethiopia 3 Department of Chemical and Food Engineering, Bahir Dar Institute of Technology, Bahir Dar University, P.O. Box 26, Bahir Dar, Ethiopia Correspondence should be addressed to Solomon Mengistu Lemma; smlemma@ncsu.edu Received 23 April 2019; Revised 23 November 2019; Accepted 3 December 2019; Published 11 January 2020 Academic Editor: Carl J. Schaschke Copyright © 2020 Zenebe Tadesse Tsegay and Solomon Mengistu Lemma. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Fermenting blended fruits has been used to improve fruit wine quality. Cactus pear and Lantana camara fruits have well-known nutritive and health benefits. The purpose of this study was to investigate cactus wine quality improvement by applying response surface optimization method of cactus pear and Lantana camara fruits juice fermentation process. Wine quality responses were optimized at an experimental strategy developed using central composite rotatory design by varying fermentation process variable temperature, inoculum, and Lantana camara fruit juice concentration for six days. The developed fermentation models were significant (p <0:01) to predict alcohol, total phenol content, and sensory property of the final wine accurately. From the statistics calculations, fermentation temperature of 24.8 ° C, inoculum concentration 10.16% (v/v), and Lantana camara fruit juice concentration of 10.66% (v/v) were the overall optimum values to produce cactus pear fruit wine with alcohol 9:53 ± 0:84% (v/v), total phenol content 651:6 ± 54 (mg L -1 equivalent to gallic acid), and sensory value of 8:83 ± 0:29. The Lantana camara fruit juice concentration added had shown significant (p <0:05) enhancement on total phenol content and sensory values of the final wine. The results can be used for large-scale wine production in order to reduce its postharvest losses. 1. Introduction Fermented fruit juice beverages have been developed from a blend of guava with kokum, sapota with ginger (Zingiber offi- cinale), watermelon (Citrullus lanatus), and mixed fruits (pawpaw and banana). The total quality of these fruit wine can be improved by applying medicinal herbs and other fruits during its fermentation process [1–3]. For instance, the study report by Lee et al. [4] indicated that the total phe- nol content, anthocyanin content, and brightness were higher in apple wine incorporating with medicinal herb fer- mentation than in normal apple wine. In addition, Lee and Chen [5] studied on the utilization of ball-milled achenes in strawberry wine fermentation to increase the levels of ellagic acid and total phenol content up to 19.72% and 52.37%, cor- respondingly. This study reported the antioxidant capacity was enhanced to 54.09% and 51.49% in ABTS and DPPH radical scavenging capacity, respectively. Pawpaw, banana, and watermelon fruits were used to produce mixed fruit wines using Saccharomyces cerevisiae with improved physi- cochemical and sensorial properties of the final wine [1]. Fruits like blueberry, strawberry, and Lantana camara have important nutrients that use to improve wine quality in the fermentation process. Since the nutrient composition of Hindawi International Journal of Food Science Volume 2020, Article ID 8647262, 15 pages https://doi.org/10.1155/2020/8647262