BUSCADOR RECOLECTA

Digital.CSIC. Repositorio Institucional del CSIC

oai:digital.csic.es:10261/262475

One of the most prominent consequences of global climate warming for the wine industry is a clear increase of the sugar content in grapes, and thus the alcohol level in wines. Among the several approaches to address this important issue, this review focuses on biotechnological solu-tions, mostly relying on the selection and improvement of wine yeast strains for reduced ethanol yields. Other possibilities are also presented. Researchers are resorting to both S. cerevisiae and alternative wine yeast species for the lowering of alcohol yields. In addition to the use of selected strains under more or less standard fermentation conditions, aerobic fermentation is increasingly being explored for this purpose. Genetic improvement is also playing a role in the development of biotechnological tools to counter the increase in the wine alcohol levels. The use of recombinant wine yeasts is restricted to research, but its contribution to the advancement of the field is still rele-vant. Furthermore, genetic improvement by non‐GMO approaches is providing some interesting results, and will probably result in the development of commercial yeast strains with a lower alcohol yield in the near future. The optimization of fermentation processes using natural isolates is, anyway, the most probable source of advancement in the short term for the production of wines with lower alcohol contents., The work of the Microwine group is currently funded by the Spanish Government through grants PID2019-105159RB-I00 and PCI2018-092949 (co-funded by ERA-CoBioTech). JT is funded by FGCSIC by the COMFUTURO program. AMG’s predoctoral contract is funded by Consejería de Desarrollo Económico e Innovación de la Comunidad Autónoma de La Rioja.