The role of "native" cultured yeast in the formation of quality indicators of wine

Abstract

Georgian winemaking has a history of more than 8000 years. During this time, various winemaking technologies have been developed, and all of them have in common the fact that wine cannot be made without yeast.At the end of the last century, foreign commercial dry yeast was widely used in Georgia for fermentation of grapes, and is still actively used due to the ease of use and storage. However, this fact is accompanied by a negative result: wines from different regions made from the same variety have lost their individuality and are monotonous. In addition, the cost of Georgian wines is also high, which presents significant challenges for wine companies from a commercial point of view. To solve this problem, with the help of scientists from Telavi University and the Free University of Brussels, in the quality-oriented  “Shumi Winery", pure cultures were isolated from local wild yeasts for the wines of the three designations of origin, which are both cultural and part of the effect of the place of origin (terroir). These wines are made from Saperavi: Napareuli, Kindzmarauli, Mukuzani.The purpose of the research is to compare the qualitative indicators of these three wines made on "native" cultural yeast with the properties of wines made on other yeasts.As a result of the research, it was determined that the pure cultures isolated from the saffron of all three microzones fermented wines whose quality indicators are not inferior and, in some cases, even better than the corresponding indicators of wines made with other cultural yeasts.