Evaluation of Saccharomyces pastorianus impact to Sauvignon blanc chemical & sensory profile compared to different strains of S. cerevisiae/bayanus

Abstract

Enhancing flavors and/or improving fermentation parameters through the use of different species of yeast strains is nowadays a frequent challenge in winemaking research, especially for aromatic varieties such as Sauvignon Blanc. In this work, the aim was to focus on the impact of a species not already studied in wine: Saccharomyces pastorianus. Twenty-two fermentations were conducted on a Sauvignon Blanc must by addition of different strains and mixtures of them by using two different inoculation temperatures. The must was inoculated in cold condition with two similar mixtures of S. pastorianus 1 or 2 (70%) and S. bayanus (30%), with S. pastorianus 1 or 2 alone, with the correspondent S. bayanus alone and with two other S. cerevisiae 1 and 2 alone as well. For classic condition, the must was inoculated with only one mixture S. pastorianus 1 (70%) / S. bayanus (30%), and respectively with S. pastorianus 1, S. bayanus and S. cerevisiae 2 alone. Samples were taken all along the fermentations for both conditions in order to check chemical and microbial analyses as well as yeast implantations. The final wines were analysed for alcohol, glucose, fructose, all other classical wine analysis as well as for acetate esters, and higher alcohols. The results underlined that for both S. pastorianus 1 and S. pastorianus 2 strains, the production of acetic acid was zero in cold condition and really low (0.09 g/l) for classic condition regarding S. pastorianus 1. As a consequence, Saccharomyces pastorianus seems to be highly interesting for winemaking, alone or in co-inoculation with S. bayanus.