Synthetic biology for the engineering of complex wine yeast communities

Technologies from synthetic biology can be applied to traditional practices in winemaking. Possibilities beyond natural microbial communities exist to improve predictive capabilities for the winemaker vintage to vintage, and introduce new characteristics to wine. Wine fermentation is a representation of complex higher-order microbial interactions. Despite the beneficial properties that these communities bring to wine, their complexity poses challenges in predicting the nature and outcome of fermentation. Technological developments in synthetic biology enable the potential to engineer synthetic microbial communities for new purposes. Here we present the challenges and applications of engineered yeast communities in the context of a wine fermentation vessel, how this represents a model system to enable novel solutions for winemaking and introduce the concept of a 'synthetic' terroir. Furthermore, we introduce our vision for the application of control engineering.