Bio-protection in oenology: a real alternative to sulphites?

One of the economic and societal challenges of recent years is to reduce the quantity of chemicals used in the agri-food industry. In wine, one method of limiting the addition of sulphites, a harmful and allergenic agent in wine, is bio-protection.

This practice consists of the early addition of microorganisms such as yeasts and bacteria on harvested grapes or grape must before fermentation. Non-Saccharomyces yeasts have therefore been proposed as an alternative to sulphite addition.

However, scientific data proving the effectiveness of bio-protection and the mechanisms involved remain sparse. The objective of this project is to provide some answers on the addition of two bio-protection strains, M. pulcherrima and T. delbrueckii, in white and red winemaking by evaluating the interest of this strategy on the antimicrobial and antioxidant level.

Winer of the Enoforum Awards 2020. The paper reproduced in this video-seminar was presented at the 1st Spanish edition of Enforum Web (5-7 May 2020)