Yeast starter cultures affecting wine fermentation and volatiles

The influence of the addition of different concentrated inocula of various strains of Sacccahromyces cerevisiae to high sugar content must on both evolution of sugar concentration and the volatile composition of the wines were studied. Evolution of sugar content was characteristic of the yeast strain and one was incapable of finishing fermentation. Volatile compounds were analyzed by using fused silica capillary GC column. Application of cluster analysis to the data showed that differences in the volatile fraction are mainly due to the inoculated yeast strain, although concentration of higher alcohols increases directly as the inoculum concentration. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.