Nuevas biotecnologías de fermentación en la producción de vino

Resumen

Wine production techniques has been improved gradually over the years until now. The yeast biotechnology developed in the last century has changed completely those methods. This review describes firstly how this development has occurred, and the new problems that it carries with the current oenological situation. Then, the basics of alcoholic fermentation and wine production are illustrated. Secondly, it gives an overview of the different characteristics that an oenological yeast must have in order to perform a complete fermentation, and to avoid spoiling the final wine. The microbiological comportment of those yeast strains is explained too, as well as a deep description of the most used yeast species nowadays, Saccharomyces cerevisiae. It specifies the important molecular mechanisms with which S. cerevisiae overcome the other species within the must at the end of fermentation. After, it reviews this yeast’s life cycle and sexual heterothallic reproduction. Next, it explains the different genetic targets and their mechanisms. Those genes can be modified by genetic engineering with the purpose of develop better yeast strains, each one with new oenological characteristics (production of different aroma compounds, nutrition uptake or low-alcohol fermentation performance). It could solve much of the new problems previously described. The article highlights too the different techniques used to obtain new yeast strains, considered Genetic Modified Organisms or not. Those methods are the DNA recombination, protoplast fusion, different kinds of hybridation (spore-to-spore, mass mating or rare-mating), clonal selection, random mutagenesis and adaptive evolution. Afterwards, it describes the new fermentation methods as co-inoculation and sequential inoculation with other yeast species. Then, different oenological strains (from the Saccharomyces genus or not) are characterized. Their benefits or disadvantages to the wine are described too. Finally, the article concludes with different research fields on which it is possible to continue the scientific work. Possible and practical utilities for the information gathered in this work are given too.