FLICKR, SARAH ACKERMANMicrobes play a central role in turning grape must—mashed stems, seeds, skins, fruits, and juice—into wine. But now researchers from the University of California, Davis, have also shown that microbes specific to the cultivar or region of the wine grapes (Vitis vinifera) may contribute to terroir—the enigmatic, signature taste of a geographic area’s wine that has previously been attributed to water, soil, and climate. Their work was published yesterday (November 25) in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
“It’s likely that microbes play a larger role than presently known and are probably a part of the regional differences that we recognize,” Thomas Henick-Kling, a professor of oenology at Washington State University who was not involved in the study, told The New York Times.
The team used a short-amplicon sequencing approach on 273 grape must samples from multiple California locations and two different vintages—2010 and 2012. They showed that wine grapes in the same region or of the same variety carried a similar complement of bacteria and fungi, even though these microbial communities varied widely across the state. When they looked in depth at Chardonnay musts, the scientists found that both bacterial and fungal communities were highly specific to region. For Cabernet Sauvignon musts, ...
