Abstract
The sparkling wine market has expanded in recent years, boosted by the increasing demand of the global market. As for other fermented beverages, technological yeasts and bacteria selected to design commercial starter cultures represent key levers to maximize product quality and safety. The increasing economic interest in the sector of sparkling wine has also implied a renewed interest in microbial resource management. In this review, after a brief introduction, we report an overview of the main characterization criteria in order to select Saccharomyces cerevisiae strains suitable for use as starter cultures for the production of base wines and to drive re-fermentation of base wines to obtain sparkling wines. Particular attention has been reserved to the technological characterization aspects of re-fermenting phenotypes. We also analysed the possible uses of selected non-Saccharomyces and malolactic strains in order to differentiate specific productions. Finally, we highlighted the main safety aspects related to microbes of enological interest and underlined some microbial-based biotechnological applications helpful to pursue product and process innovations. Overall, the sparkling wine industry may find a relevant benefit from the exploitation of the wide resources associated with vineyard/wine microbial diversity.
Highlights
Humans have produced alcoholic beverages for millennia and these products have been traditionally used for medicinal, nutritional, and social purposes [1,2]
Starter cultures for sparkling wine production need to be selected in order to produce either quality base wine or to vigorously promote the second fermentation, which occurs in a harsh environment, mainly due to the elevated ethanol content, low pH
In light of the existing innovative trends in the field of microbial resources in enology, a specific insight is needed for non-Saccharomyces yeasts and malolactic lactic acid bacteria (LAB) that might be involved in sparkling wine production [3,85]
Summary
Humans have produced alcoholic beverages for millennia and these products have been traditionally used for medicinal, nutritional, and social purposes [1,2]. Yeasts produce several compounds, mainly ethanol and carbon dioxide, with the latter released directly into the atmosphere if the process is conducted in an open vessel. This is what happens during the production of most wines, normally defined “still” wines for the negligible amounts of carbon dioxide that they still contain. Starter cultures for sparkling wine production need to be selected in order to produce either quality base wine or to vigorously promote the second fermentation, which occurs in a harsh environment, mainly due to the elevated ethanol content, low pH (2.8–3.3), and carbon dioxide-induced pressure [18]
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