Approximately ten years after a first critical review of the authors on the occurrence of contaminant elements in wine, the subject remains of the utmost importance within the technological, food safety and legal concern. Future developments on toxicological and analytical field, as well as on international trade, will promote changes in existing regulations. Increasing concern with wine food safety may lead to the enlargement of the list of elements to control, and the change of terms in which the acceptable maximum limits are established. This paper, based on the introduction chapter of a Doctoral Thesis, presents a brief approach to the mineral composition of wine, and reviews a large group of contaminant elements (information also systematized in a table), including research results obtained by the authors. Aspects such as origin, levels of occurrence, evolution throughout the technological processes, potential sources of contamination, distribution under different chemical species, toxicity, analytical determination and acceptable maximum limits, vary considerably among contaminant elements.