Exploitation of autochthonous micro-organism potential to enhance the quality of Apulian wines

A pressing necessity of the Apulian wine industry is to be able to pilot and to control wine production to obtain wines with peculiar characteristics and with the typicality guaranteed by the denominations of origin. The employment of selected autochthonous yeast strains would be a potent instrument to improve the organoleptic and sensory characteristics of typical regional wines. In fact, indigenous yeasts are better adapted to a specific must and therefore they are able to exalt the peculiarities of the derived wine. The present work describes the genetic diversity of autochthonous Saccharomyces cerevisiae strains derived from natural must fermentations of an important Apulian grape cultivar, denoted as "Primitivo". The yeast strains showing the best technological and oenological properties were selected, and their fermentative performances were assayed by either laboratory tests or industrial scale fermentations. Two autochthonous yeast strains were shown to be good candidates as industrial starter cultures, since they dominated the fermentation process and produced wines characterized by peculiar oenological and organoleptic features, that were judged very pleasant by a panel of winemakers.