Yeast or water: producing wine with lower alcohol levels in a warming climate: a review

Abstract

Climate change effects over the last century have seen grape wine growers being faced with earlier budburst and shorter seasons. One effect is higher sugar levels in the grape berries, resulting in wines with higher than typical alcohol concentrations. Winemakers, both in Australia and globally, need to reassess their wine making approaches to address the challenges associated with warmer drier conditions. This review focuses on two pre‐fermentation approaches that address ethanol production during fermentation, so that wine makers can produce a wine with lower final alcohol levels at the same time as addressing any negative impacts on wine quality. First, microbiological yeast approaches are reviewed. This approach can reduce final alcohol levels in a treated wine between 0.2% v/v‐3.7% v/v; however, diverse wine quality impacts can result, dependant on the microbiological yeast approach taken. Second, the pre‐fermentation approach of water addition/substitution into a high sugar grape must is reviewed. To date, recent studies indicate that this ‘water treatment’ of musts approach is effective with respect to reducing final alcohol levels from between 0.6% v/v‐5.9% v/v in the resultant wines, with less variation effects on final wine quality. It is noted that further studies for the ‘water treatment’ of high sugar musts approach are required to provide additional foundational data sets with respect to impacts on chemical, phenolic and sensory attributes of the final wine products, both within and across vintages. This is especially important as winemakers adapt their winemaking approaches in a changing climate. © 2022 Society of Chemical Industry.

Evaluation of the Bio-Protective Effect of Native Candida Yeasts on Sauvignon Blanc Wines

“…In fact, the Candida boidinii 1 × 10 7 strategy presented an ethanol production of 12.78 ± 0.15 % v/v (Table 4), a significantly higher concentration than that obtained by the sulfites control and the other strategies. This behavior was unexpected since the literature reports that non-saccharomyces yeasts in general, and Candida boidinii in particular, are yeasts that can reduce ethanol levels in wine [33,39]. However, this may be due to the aforementioned lack of control over LAB (Table 2), given that the presence of hetero-fermentative LAB can increase CO 2 and ethanol concentrations in wine [40].…”

Bio-Dealcoholization of Wines: Can Yeast Make Lighter Wines?

“…Still, more commonly, they are separated depending on when they are applied in the wine production process. Some authors [96][97][98] indicate four different categories, while other authors [99,100] divide these strategies into three, as will be discussed in this document (Figure 2).…”

Enhancing Beverage Fermentation through Synergy of Saccharomycopsis fibuligera and Saccharomyces cerevisiae: A Mini-Review

“…In the beverage industry, Saccharomyces yeasts, including top-fermenting S. cerevisiae and bottom-fermenting S. carlsbergensis, are extensively utilized for the production of beer and wine [4]. These yeasts have been domesticated and tailored for specific brewing processes to achieve desired flavor profiles and fermentation outcomes.…”