Correlation between Microbial Community and Volatile Com-ponents during the Fermentation Process of Chestnut Rice Wine

Chestnut rice wine, banli mijiu (BLMJ), uses Chinese chestnut (Castanea mollissima Blume) in the fermentation of traditional glutinous rice wine. This study aimed to characterize microbial communities and volatile compounds of BLMJ and explore correlations between them. Head-space Solid-Phase Microextraction-Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry (HS-SPME-GC-MS) was used to analyze the volatile compounds. The results showed that the major volatile com-pounds during BLMJ fermentation include 2-methyl-1-propanol, 2,3-butanediol, ethyl decanoate, ethyl hexanoate, ethyl octanoate, ethyl isovalerate, ethyl heptanoate, ethyl tetradecanoate, ben-zeneacetaldehyde, and 2-methoxyphenol (OAV >10). High-throughput sequencing (HTS) tech-nology demonstrated that the abundance and diversity of bacteria were significantly greater than those of fungi during the fermentation process. Among them, Kropensteria and Saccharomyces were the most abundant bacteria and fungi at the genus level during the production of BLMJ. Spear-man correlation analysis revealed that seven important volatile compounds, including four al-cohols and one alkene, were significantly positively correlated with seven microbial genera (|r| > 0.9, p < 0.01), including six bacterial genera (i.e., Rhodococcus, Unclassified_f_Bacillaceae, Burkhold-eria-Caballeronia-Paraburkholderia, Lactococcus, Pseudomonas, and Janthinobacterium) and one fungal genus (i.e., Saccharomyces). Therefore, these were considered the core functional microorganisms during BLMJ fermentation. This study can serve as a reference to guide the microbial community development during fermentation for improving the flavor profile of BLMJ.