Influence of red wine fermentation oenological additives on inoculated strain implantation

Pure selected cultures of Saccharomyces cerevisiae starters are regularly used in the wine industry. A survey of S. cerevisiae populations during red wine fermentations was performed in order to evaluate the influence of oenological additives on the implantation of the inoculated strain. Pilot scale fermentations (500 L) were conducted with active dry yeast (ADY) and other commercial oenological additives, namely two commercial fermentation activators and two commercial tannins. Six microsatellite markers were used to type S. cerevisiae strains. The methodology proved to be very discriminating as a great diversity of wild strains (48 genotypes) was detected. Statistical analysis confirmed a high detection of the inoculated commercial strain, and for half the samples an effective implantation of ADY (over 80 %) was achieved. At late fermentation time, ADY strain implantation in fermentations conducted with commercial additives was lower than in the control. These results question the efficacy of ADY addition in the presence of other additives, indicating that further studies are needed to improve knowledge on oenological additives’ use.