Vineyard Metagenome. fermentation metagenome

Diverse microbial communities are present on grapes harvested from vineyards. Spontaneous fermentation of grape juice is consistently dominated by Saccharomyces cerevisiae. The goal of the study was to track the abundance of S. cerevisiae relative to other fungal species from the vineyard environment, to wine must and during wine fermentation. Samples were from five vineyards in Slovenia and include the vineyard environment (soil, oak bark), wine must and fermentation time-courses from two vineyards. Fungal diversity and abundance was characterized by sequencing ITS1 amplified PCR products. The results of this study bear on when and which species S. cerevisiae competes with in order to establish itself as the dominant species at the end of wine fermentation.