Molecular Identification and Characterization of Wine Yeasts

The transformation of grape must into wine is a complex microbiological process involving the sequential growth of bacteria and yeasts, although only the yeasts are responsible for alcoholic fermentation. In the past, winemaking was purely empirical, but it is now a well-understood, controlled process that has been gradually improved over time. Advances have largely been made possible by the development of molecular techniques to identify and characterize wine yeasts based on analysis of their DNA. These methods are rapid, reproducible, and sensitive, and continue to be used for a variety of purposes, such as analyzing variation in naturally occurring and inoculated yeast populations, monitoring the dynamics of inoculated strains, characterizing wine yeasts, and detecting spoilage yeasts.