Distribution and correlation of three oenological traits in Saccharomyces cerevisiae

Abstract

The improvement of yeast starters for wine making, with classical genetic techniques, relays on the effective independence of the main oenological traits in order to combine them optimally. The analysis of three characters (ethanol production, volatile acidity and fermenting rate) in 787 Saccharomyces cerevisiae strains, isolated from several parts of the world and substrates, shows moderate correlation between the volatile acidity and the other two traits, whereas ethanol production and fermenting rate appear more correlated. The minimum number of strains necessary to start selection or genetic improvement programs is discussed. The correlation between the oenological traits and the source of isolation showed that the best strains can be obtained from wineries and wine, where as the isolates from grapes and must are less performing on the average.