Bordeaux red wines display variable intrinsic ability to support Brettanomyces bruxellensis growth

• Published in: Food control 2024-01, Vol.155, p.110067, Article 110067
• Main Authors: Miranda, Julie, Miot-Sertier, Cécile, Olazabal, Laura, Albertin, Warren, Richard, Tristan, Da Costa, Grégory, Rouger, Caroline, Dols-Lafargue, Marguerite
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: B. bruxellensis; Ethanol; Life Sciences; Permissiveness; Wine
• ISSN: 0956-7135; 1873-7129
• DOI: 10.1016/j.foodcont.2023.110067

Red wines constitute a major production in Bordeaux vineyards but to ensure the quality of these wines, winemakers should limit the development of the spoilage yeast Brettanomyces bruxellensis. Therefore, the growth of five representative strains of B. bruxellensis in 53 sulphite-free Bordeaux red wines was examined and differences between them were found regarding the ability to support the yeast growth. Thanks to a notation method and unsupervised classification analysis, we classified the wines according to their “permissiveness”. The key factors modulating the permissiveness score were the wine ethanol content, the yeast strain and the wine itself (domain, vintage or batch). The pH had little effect. The wine composition analysis (Proton Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (1H NMR) analysis of 43 compounds) did not enable to find the molecules responsible for the wine permissiveness. •Bordeaux wines display heterogeneous tolerance towards B. bruxellensis.•A scoring of wine permissiveness is proposed and evaluated.•The effect of five wine-related factors on the permissiveness is examined.•Alcohol has a more direct impact than pH.