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 evo lution of sugar concentration and the volatile composition of the wines wer e studied. Evolution of sugar content was characteristic of the yeast strai n 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 m ainly due to the inoculated yeast strain, although concentration of higher alcohols increases directly as the inoculum concentration. (C) 2001 Elsevie r Science Ltd. All rights reserved.