Trends in wine microbiology

During the last few years many winemakers have started to use pure Saccharomyces cerevisiae strains, frequently isolated from their own geographical regions, to produce wines of more reproducible quality. This microbiological simplification has opened the way for the genetic modification of wine yeast strains. This review concerns the application of molecular techniques in oenology, not only from the point of view of the construction of recombinant strains but also for the study of the population dynamics of wine fermentations.