A team of Australian researchers managed to isolate specific yeast strains, which produced lower levels of alcohol in the wine while maintaining its quality.
In the last 10-15 years, the alcoholic strength of the wines produced has risen from 11-12.5% to 15%. This fact was considered by some wine lovers to alter the organoleptic characteristics and character of some wines. This, combined with health issues related to alcohol consumption and for economic reasons related to higher taxation, cultivated the idea of trying to make wines with lower alcohol content.
The research focused on the attempt to systematically evaluate yeast strains that do not belong to the genus Shacharomyces , as a means to reduce alcohol content.
50 different isolates from 40 yeast species and 24 genera were evaluated for their potential to produce wine with low alcohol content. The strain Metschnikowia pulcherrima AWRI1149 stood out during experiments carried out on wolves of the Chardonnay and Syrah varieties.
When this strain, which is distinguished by a lower growth rate, consumed 50% of the available sugars, the musts were inoculated with strains of Shacharomyces cerevisiae in order to complete alcoholic fermentation.
With this successive vaccination, a reduction in alcoholic strength from 15% to 13.4% was achieved, in the case of Syrah. The results were similar in Chardonnay’s case. In controls in which the evaluated strains were not used, no decrease in alcoholic strength was observed.
Previous research on the influence of non-Shacharomyces yeasts on alcoholic fermentation has focused on a limited number of species and the compounds they produce with a negative effect on organoleptic characteristics and wine quality, without evaluating their effect on the level of alcohol content.
Source : www.infowine.com
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