The wine microbial consortium: a real terroir characteristic

Yeast, bacteria, species and strains play a key role in the winemaking process by producing metabolites which determine the sensorial qualities of wine. Therefore microbial population numeration, species identification and strains discrimination from berry surface at harvest to storage in bottle are fundamental. The microbial diversity and significance of its variation according to vineyard and cellar have not really been thoroughly considered in literature, and is the focus of this work. That should be of great interest because the spontaneous microbial population dynamics associated with a wine producing estate provide information on what might be considered as the method to obtain specific terroir typed wine. The both use of conventional microbiological methods numbering the wine microbial populations and efficient molecular tools of species identification and strains discrimination has demonstrated the microbial differences according to the estate revealing the microbial part in specific terroir characteristic.