Phenotypic and genotypic characterization of yeasts isolated in Douro wine region

• Author(s): Maciel, Vitória ; Pacheco, Andreia ; Simões, José Tomás ; Roseira, Margarida ; Sousa, Maria João
• Date: 2011
• Persistent ID: https://hdl.handle.net/1822/16010
• Origin: RepositóriUM - Universidade do Minho
• Document Type: Conference paper
• Language: English
• Contributor(s): Universidade do Minho

Description

The aim of the present work was the phenotypic and genotypic characterization of isolates from the yeast collection of the Instituto dos Vinhos do Douro e Porto, I.P, in order to evaluate their oenological potential for use as fermentation starters in the production of high quality wines with regional character. Results showed that most of the 103 strains tested in the first screen had high fermentative capacity, and when compared with a commercial wine yeast strain many isolates displayed faster fermentation kinetics. From these, 37 isolates were selected for further studies. Mitochondrial DNA restriction and RFLP analysis showed that the 37 isolates corresponded to Saccharomyces cerevisiae strains and no redundancy was found. The performance of the 37 isolates was tested under stress conditions such as: fermentation at low temperature and at high initial sugar concentrations, growth in the presence of high ethanol concentrations, and growth and consumption of acetic acid in the presence of glucose. The results confirmed the excellent fermentative capacity of the isolates even at low temperature and high sugar, and an exceptional ethanol resistance.