Over the past two years, the AWRI has received 69 wine samples suspected of being affected by mousy off-flavour. The character has been mostly observed in white wines.
After fermentations, the crude wine is a turbid medium not accepted by the consumer therefore, it needs to be filtered
Residual grape solids (suspended particles) in white and rosé musts vary depending on the clarification pro-cess. These suspended solids contain lipids (more especially phytosterols) that are essential for yeast meta-bolism and viability during fermentation in anaerobic conditions.
In oenology, bio-protection consists in adding bacteria, yeasts or a mixture of microorganisms on grape must before fermentation in order to reduce the use of chemical compounds such as sulphites.
Copper (Cu) is known to substantially impact wine stability through oxidative, reductive or colloidal phenomena. Recent work has shown that Cu exists predominantly in a sulfide-bound form, which may act as a potential source of sulfidic off-odours in wine and hence contribute to reductive flavours