Autochthonous starter cultures and indigenous grape variety for regional wine production.
OBJECTIVE
To characterize Oenococcus oeni strains isolated from North-Apulian wines where malic acid degradation is usually achieved by spontaneous fermentations, and to determine the influence of bacterial inoculation time on the malolactic performances in 'Nero di Troia' wine using a complete autochthonous microbial regime.


RESULTS
Oenococcus oeni strains from wines produced with the autochthonous (Apulia Region, southern Italy) grape variety 'Uva di Troia' were isolated, selected and characterized. Multilocus sequence typing and variable number tandem repeat analysis were used to investigate intraspecific diversity. Oenococcus oeni strains were tested in co-inoculation and in sequential inoculation, with two autochthonous yeast strains previously isolated from 'Nero di Troia' wine. After a preliminary screening using co-inoculation regime, the O. oeni strains were grouped in reason of the different behaviour in malic acid performances. Results suggested that the efficient degradation of malic acid in co-inoculation is a strain-dependent characteristic.


CONCLUSIONS
Autochthonous yeast/bacterium combinations were identified as starter culture, and used in a co-inoculation approach, for vinification of regional wines.


CONCLUSIONS
The 'microbial terroir' of typical fermented food and beverage production represents a dynamic sector of applied research in food microbiology. In this work, we propose the use of autochthonous bacteria and yeast for wine production from an indigenous grape variety.
Dipartimento di Scienze Agrarie, degli Alimenti e dell'Ambiente, Università di Foggia, Foggia, Italy.
C
C
Garofalo
University of Bordeaux, ISVV, Villenave d'Ornon, France.
M
M
El Khoury
University of Bordeaux, ISVV, Villenave d'Ornon, France.
P
P
Lucas
University of Bordeaux, ISVV, Villenave d'Ornon, France.
M
M
Bely
Dipartimento di Scienze Agrarie, degli Alimenti e dell'Ambiente, Università di Foggia, Foggia, Italy.
P
P
Russo
Dipartimento di Scienze Agrarie, degli Alimenti e dell'Ambiente, Università di Foggia, Foggia, Italy.
G
G
Spano
Dipartimento di Scienze Agrarie, degli Alimenti e dell'Ambiente, Università di Foggia, Foggia, Italy.
V
V
Capozzi
D005285:Fermentation; D005516:Food Microbiology; D007558:Italy; D008293:Malates / Q000378:metabolism; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D056585:Oenococcus / Q000378:metabolism*; D012441:Saccharomyces cerevisiae / Q000378:metabolism*; D027843:Vitis / Q000145:classification / Q000382:microbiology*; D014920:Wine / Q000032:analysis / Q000382:microbiology*
D008293:Malates; C030298:malic acid
Oenococcus oeni; autochthonous; co-inoculation; multilocus sequence typing; variable number tandem repeat