Wine yeast species show strong inter- and intra-specific variability in their sensitivity to uv-c radiation

Abstract

While the trend in winemaking is toward reducing the inputs and especially sulphites, the development of While the trend in winemaking is toward reducing the inputs and especially sulphites, the development of innovative process to ensure microbial stabilization is a relevant topic for the industry. UV-C process is a non-thermal technique widely used for food preservation. In this study, we evaluated the relative sensitivity to UV-C of various wine related yeast species. A first approach was conducted using a drop-platted system. 147 strains distributed amongst fourteen yeast species related to wine environment were plated on Petri dishes (with 3 different drop densities) and exposed to six increasing UV-C doses. An important variability in UV-C response was observed at the interspecific level. Cellar resident species, which are mainly associated with wine spoilage, expressed higher sensitivity to UV-C than vineyard resident species. A focus on B. bruxellensis species with 104 screened strains highlighted an important effect of the UV-C, with intra-specific variation. The impact of this intra-specific variation of UV-C sensitivity on wine treatment efficiency was then studied. Six B. bruxellensis strains(including two sulphites resistant strains) from three different genetic groups were separately inoculated in red wine Those inoculated wines were then treated in our home-made UV-C pilot which allows the continuous treatment of liquids at 200 L.h-1. 4968 J.L-1 were sufficient to achieve 4.70 and 5.17 log10 reduction for both sulphites resistant strains, resulting in populations lower than 1 CFU.mL-1 after UV-C treatment. 6624 J.L-1 were required to achieve the same level of population (<1CFU.mL-1) for 3 other strains. This treatment was not sufficient to achieve the same result only for one strain. These results highlight the potential of UV-C utilisation against wine yeast spoiler at cellar scale even in highly absorbent wine (α254 = 31.6 cm-1). They also show that intraspecific variability (in addition to the already known interspecific variability) may have an effect on the required doses for the microbiological stabilization of wines.