1. Introduction
In winemaking the use of selected cultures is a suitable strategy to control the fermentation process and improve organoleptic profiles and specific aroma compounds for the production of distinctive wines [
1,
2]. In this regard, the use of selected non-
Saccharomyces yeasts under suitable conditions has widened the opportunities for enhancing the specific contribution of yeasts in winemaking. Indeed, their use in mixed and sequential fermentations with the starter
Saccharomyces cerevisiae determined an enhancement of the organoleptic qualities of wine and the complexity of aromatic notes [
3,
4,
5]. During the last few decades, many studies have been focused on the use of non-
Saccharomyces yeasts during alcoholic fermentation for several variations of specific wine features as increase of glycerol [
6] reduction of volatile acidity [
7] enhancement of total acidity, production of polysaccharides [
8] while others focused on the enhancement of flavor and aroma complexity [
9,
10,
11] or ethanol reduction [
12]. In addition to these features the use of non-
Saccharomyces yeast has been proposed for biocontrol in winemaking. During the last few years there has been a trend in modern enology to decrease sulfites because of the affect the human health. Although the World Health Organization has recommended a daily dose of SO
2 (RDA) of 0.7 mg SO
2/kg of body weight, the European law has set the maximum concentrations allowed at 150 mg/L and 200 mg/L respectively in red and white wines (EU Regulation No. 606/2009). Moreover, environmental concerns led consumers to prefer “healthy” products and choose wines with lower levels of sulfites. In this perspective, the attention of winemakers was focused on the research based on new strategies to reduce the use of SO
2 as chemical additive with a broad spectrum and widely used the winemaking process [
13]. In this regard, in addition to chemical and physical strategies, the use of non-
Saccharomyces yeasts could be a suitable and innovative strategy to achieve this goal with an improvement of the aroma profile of wine. Several studies have reported the bioprotectant activity of non-
Saccharomyces which were found to be effective against spoilage wild microorganisms [
14,
15,
16,
17,
18]. In particular, the presence of
T. delbrueckii strain grape juice determined to a decrease in wild yeasts biodiversity if compared to the addition of sulphites [
19].
Among the different non-
Saccharomyces wine yeasts used in mixed fermentation with
S. cerevisiae in winemaking,
T. delbrueckii showed several features that positively affect the wine quality [
20] and others that concern microbial interactions such as the production of active compounds (killer toxin and hydroxytyrosol). Effectively, with respect to the attributes required to perform industrial alcoholic fermentation, among the non-Saccharomyces yeasts,
T. delbrueckii is the closest species to
S. cerevisiae. This affinity could be probably the main reason why T. delbrueckii was the first non-Saccharomyces yeast suggested for winemaking use at industrial level.
For these reasons in this study it was evaluated the use of a selected strain of
T. delbrueckii in sequential fermentation with native
S. cerevisiae strain already selected [
21] and tested [
22] for low sulfite wine production. The aim was to evaluate the biocontrol and aroma-enhancing features of
T. delbrueckii in organic wines using a low sulfite producer
S. cerevisiae strain.
4. Discussion
The renewed interest of non-Saccharomyces yeasts has led to the industrial production of selected cultures for winemaking. Currently, T. delbrueckii was first non-Saccharomyces species produced for this purpose, and the most currently commercially available active dry yeasts.
The ability of
S. cerevisiae to overcome other non-
Saccharomyces yeasts and to dominate wine fermentation is undoubted. Moreover,
T. delbrueckii has a general less fermentation vigor and a slower growth rate than
S. cerevisiae under usual wine fermentation conditions [
10,
12], and this behavior may suggest a difficulty in dominating must fermentation in the presence of inoculated
S. cerevisiae yeasts [
31]. However, under the conditions tested (two days sequential inoculation), the
T. delbrueckii DiSVA 130 strain did not seem to be affect from the presence of
S. cerevisiae DiSVA 709.
The results of the fermentation kinetics agreed with previous studies [
7,
32], which reported a lower ethanol production in the trials where the musts were inoculated with
T. delbrueckii yeast, although no statistical differences were seen between commercial
T. delbrueckii and selected native strain.
Regarding to the biocontrol action Simonin et al. [
19] reported the results of bio-protectant and antioxidant effects of
T.delbrueckii, inoculated at the beginning of the white winemaking process while Chacon-Rodriguez, et al. [
15] showed a biocontrol action of a blend of
T. delbrueckii and
Metschnikowia pulcherrima applied to a machine harvester as compared to standard addition of SO
2 in Cabernet Sauvignon variety. In agreement with Simonin et al. [
19] the addition of
T. delbrueckii DiSVA 130 showed a control of wild yeasts during the first two days of fermentation, also if slightly lower if compared with sulfites fermentation control trial. However,
T. delbrueckii DiSVA 130 effectively limited the development of wild yeasts demonstrating its effectiveness to protect must.
The impact of
T. delbrueckii on the fermentation and aroma enhancement has been documented during the years [
33,
34]. A lot of studies showed the positive contribution of
T. delbrueckii strains and their relative positive impact on wine quality [
9,
20,
35]. This non-
Saccharomyces yeast is recommended for the fermentation of both dry and high sugar grapes for the low production of acetic acid. Azzolini and coworkers [
36] already demonstrated that multi-starter fermentation with
T. delbrueckii greatly affected the content of several important volatile compounds, including ß-phenyl ethanol, isoamyl acetate, fatty acid esters, C4–C10 fatty acids and vinyl phenols. Ramirez and Velazquez [
31] analyzed the variable behavior of
T. delbrueckii considering the strain’s differences, and wine varieties with special emphasis on the proposals for industrial uses of this species.
The production of esters by
T. delbrueckii might be strain-dependent and it has extensively demonstrated that this production is further modified in the presence of
S. cerevisiae during multiple fermentations [
9,
37]. This could explain some results obtained in this work, concerning the volatile compounds phenyl ethyl acetate and ß-phenyl ethyl ethanol which typically increase in the presence of
T. delbrueckii. In the first set of trials conducted with and without sulfur dioxide,
T. delbrueckii DiSVA 130/
S. cerevisiae DiSVA 709 trials showed phenyl ethyl acetate only a slight increase, while isoamyl acetate and phenyl ethyl ethanol increased significantly only without sulfur dioxide. In the second set of the trials, both
T. delbrueckii DiSVA 130 and the commercial strain ALPHA
® in sequential fermentation with
S. cerevisiae DiSVA 709 determined a 10-fold increase in phenyl ethyl acetate compared with pure
S. cerevisiae fermentation. On the other hand, in the condition tested, β-phenyl ethyl ethanol increased only slightly in the
T. delbrueckii ALPHA
®/
S.cerevisiae DiSVA 709 fermentation while the presence of
T. delbrueckii DiSVA 130 did not cause any increase. On the other hand, in agreement with Sun et al. [
29], both sequential fermentations using
T. delbrueckii DiSVA 130 and ALPHA
® revealed significant enhancement of ethyl acetate, phenyl ethyl acetate while the amounts of terpens were lower the thresholds values.
The overall analytical profile of wines did not show any defect in presence of T. delbrueckii showing, on the contrary, some differences in esters and higher alcohols and the sensory evaluation highlighted the effective positive contribution of this non-Saccharomyces yeasts, particularly the native strain T. delbrueckii DiSVA 130, which imparts notes of tropical fruit, citrus and ripe fruit and greater balance to the wine.
The overall results indicated the multiple roles of T. delbrueckii in winemaking since the selected DiSVA 130 strain showed an effective biocontrol action in sequential fermentation of Verdicchio wine in absence of SO2 addition. At the same time, this fermentation modality gave a distinctive and aromatic imprint to the wine as corroborated by the sensory analysis.
A negative perception developed by consumers towards sulfites in wine, because of health and environmental concerns is the new trend in winemaking market. For this, there are increasing demand for health benefits wines, and with low SO2 content, that push winemakers toward strains with tailored characteristics.
In this research, the efficacy of T. delbrueckii DiSVA 130 in sequential fermentation with native S. cerevisiae DiSVA 709 evidenced a biocontrol activity in the absence of SO2, revealing a synergistic effect of two native strains to impart distinctive aromatic notes.