Improving Aroma Complexity with Hanseniaspora spp.: Terpenes, Acetate Esters, and Safranal

Abstract

Hanseniaspora vineae and Hanseniaspora opuntiae are apiculate yeasts normally found on the skins of ripe grapes and at the beginning of alcoholic fermentation. Several studies have reported that these species can provide interesting sensory characteristics to wine by contributing high levels of acetate esters and can increase the mouthfeel and body of wines. The present work aims to evaluate the use of these two species sequentially with Saccharomyces cerevisiae to improve the sensory profile of Albillo Mayor white wines. The fermentations were carried out in triplicate in 150 L stainless steel barrels. At the end of the alcoholic fermentation polysaccharides, colour, and an extensive study of the aromatic profiles were measured. Results showed up to 1.55 times higher content of 2-phenylethanol in H. opuntiae wines and up to three times higher concentration of fermentative esters in H. vineae wines than in the controls. Interestingly, it should be noted that the compound safranal was identified only in the H. vineae wines. These results indicated that the species studied are an interesting bio-tool to improve the aromatic profile of Albillo Mayor white wines. A novel non-targeted NMR-based metabolomics approach is proposed as a tool for optimising wine productions with standard and sequential fermentation schemes using apiculate yeast strains due to its discriminant capacity to differentiate fine features between wine samples from the identical geographical origin and grape variety but diverse fermentations or vintages.

Aroma compounds profile is affected by the initial yeast ratio in wort co-fermentations

“…3 , Table S4 ), and had a modest production of undesirable compounds such as acetaldehyde and 4-vinylguaiacol. This species has been previously reported to produce high levels of ethyl acetate and 2-phenylethyl acetate in the rich laboratory medium YPD and grape must (5, 52). Our results show that Hv maintains a similar production of those compounds also when grown in wort and would be a very good candidate for beer co-fermentations, where excessive production of those compounds should be limited.…”

“…2-Phenylethyl acetate, which is the result of the esterification of acetic acid and phenylethyl alcohol (61), provides a pleasant floral aroma and it is known to be highly produced in the Hanseniaspora sp. (4, 52, 63). We also detected this compound in the Sc7 monoculture, however, in the Hv monoculture and in the 10/90 Sc7/Hv co-culture its concentration was 2.5-fold and 2.3-fold higher, respectively ( Table 4 ).…”

The Use of Hanseniaspora opuntiae to Improve ‘Sideritis’ Wine Quality, a Late-Ripening Greek Grape Variety

“…Higher alcohols form a large group of volatiles in wines, which at high levels contribute negatively to their aroma, except for 2-phenylethanol that produces "flowery" and "sweet" notes [30]. Different Hanseniaspora species may enhance the levels of higher alcohols in wines and have been shown to produce higher levels of 3-methyl-1-butanol and 2-methyl-1-butanol compared to S. cerevisiae [31]. H. opuntiae in particular was previously shown to increase 3-methyl-1-butanol and 2-phenylethanol [14].…”

Emerging biotechnologies and non-thermal technologies for winemaking in a context of global warming

“…Hv yields high terpene contents in some must fermentations (x3 on average compared to Sc) (del Fresno et al, 2021a). The production of some specific spice compounds such as safranal in Hv above its sensory threshold has also been described (del Fresno et al, 2022). Protective effects on color has also been observed with improved hue parameters that can be representative of a lower oxidation in rose wines (del Fresno et al, 2021b).…”

“…Hanseniaspora opuntiae (Ho) is also an apiculate yeast but smaller than Hv . It can promote the release of some terpenes as citronellol (del Fresno et al, 2022;Badura et al, 2023) and has been described as a good producer of floral and fruity acetate esters (Bourbon-Melo et al, 2021;del Fresno et al, 2022), conferring floral notes in wines (Luan et al, 2018), with moderate volatile acidity and low levels of ethyl acetate (del Fresno et al, 2022). However, the fermentative power is lower than in Hv usually reaching 4-6% v/v ethanol depending on strains and fermentation conditions.…”