PROGRESS OF STUDIES OF LEES ORIGINATING FROM THE FIRST ALCOHOLIC FERMENTATION OF CHAMPAGNE WINES

Today, nearly one billion bottles of different sizes and capacities are aging in Champagne cellars while waiting to be put on the market. Among them, several tens of thousands of prestigious cuvees elaborated prior the 2000s are potentially concerned by prolonged aging on lees. However, when it comes to champagne tasting, dissolved CO₂ is a key compound responsible for the very much sought-after effer-vescence in glasses [1]. Yet, the slow decrease of dissolved CO₂ during prolonged aging of the most prestigious cuvees raises the issue of how long a champagne can age before it becomes unable to form CO₂ bubbles during tasting [2].

The synthetic herbicide glyphosate has been used extensively in viticulture over many decades to combat weeds. Despite this, the possible influence of residual glyphosate on both the alcoholic fermentation of grape juice and the subsequent metabolite profile of wines has not been investigated. In this study, Pinot noir juice supplemented with different concentrations of glyphosate (0 µg L-1, 10 µg L-1 and 1000 µg L-1) was fermented with commercial Saccharomyces cerevisiae yeast strains. Using a combination of analytical methods, 80 metabolites were quantified in the resulting wines.

Pre-fermentative skin maceration is a technique used in white wine production to enhance varietal aroma, but it can increase protein concentration, leading to protein instability and haze formation [1]. To prevent protein instability, wine producers typically use fining agents such as bentonite, before wine bottling, which can negatively impact sensory characteristics and produce waste [2,3]. The aim of this study was to understand the impact of alternative techniques such as the application of polysaccharides (k-carrageenan and chitosan) on protein stability and on the wine macromolecular composition.

SO₂ play a major role in the stability and wine during storage. Nowadays, the reduction of chemical input during red winemaking and especially the removing SO₂ is a growing expectation from the consumers. Winemaking without SO₂ is a big challenge for the winemakers since the lack of SO₂ affects directly the wine chemical evolution such as the phenolic compounds as well as its microbiological stability.

The Matrix Assisted Laser Desorption/Ionization–Time-Of-Flight Mass Spectrometry (MALDI-TOF MS) technology is commonly used in food and medical sector to identify yeast or bacteria species isolated from a nutritive culture media. Since a decade, brewery and oenology industries have been attracted to this method which combines fast analysis times, reliability and low cost of analysis. Briefly, this method is based on the comparison of the MALDI-TOF/MS protein spectra of an isolated colony of yeast or bacteria with those contain in a manufacturer’s reference protein spectra database. Initiated in 2015, the creation of the first oenological mass spectra database has proved to be essential for increase quality of species identification.