Building wine profiles for B.C. growers through science
July 15, 2024 – Dr. Vivien Measday, Associate Professor at the Wine Research Centre, recently received funds from the NSERC Discovery Grants program to support her wine research. Dr. Measday’s project, “Biodiversity and Phenotypic Traits of Pacific West Coast Wine Yeast Strains,” aims to enhance competitiveness for growers in the B.C. wine industry. It will receive $48,000 per year for five years – a total of $172,480.
Wine research in Dr. Vivien Measday’s lab focuses on isolating and characterizing yeast populations associated with the vineyards in the Okanagan, a major viticultural area in British Columbia. Her research team conducted the first study to carry out the whole genome sequencing of S. cerevisiae yeast strains isolated from spontaneous fermentations of grapes sourced from the Okanagan.
“We have identified a new family of S. cerevisiae in Okanagan wineries, called the Pacific West Coast Wine (PWCW) yeast clade, that is genetically distinct from commercial wine strains,” explains Dr. Measday. Commercial wine strains can have lower genetic diversity and be less complex in wine flavour and therefore, diverse indigenous strains may be used to increase wine flavour profiles.
Worldwide, major wine regions have demonstrated that product differentiation by terroir enhances the marketability and perceived value of their wines. The majority of the commercial wine strains available on the global market have been isolated from vineyards or fermentations in Europe and therefore, may not be ideal in reflecting the terrior of non-European vineyards, such as those in the Okanagan. While soil, climate, and topography are the most commonly associated elements of terroir, yeast and other microbial populations are important components of terroir, particularly for wines made by spontaneous fermentation.
Spontaneous fermentation is the traditional method of wine fermentation and is characterized by a diverse succession of yeast species in the vineyard and winery, however it can be risky: Saccharomyces cerevisiae (S. cerevisiae), or brewer’s yeast, may be in low abundance or become spoiled, resulting in off-flavours. One approach to mitigate this risk while creating a wine that reflects the local terrior, is to isolate indigenous strains from winery spontaneous fermentations and propagate the strains for use as starter cultures. This approach requires that the strain first be genotyped and/or have its genome sequenced.
Dr. Measday says that their next goal is to isolate yeast from wineries on Vancouver Island and determine their identity using whole genome sequencing. They are also carrying out large-scale phenotyping to identify traits in S. cerevisiae strains that will improve aroma production in wine fermentation.
Read about the recent UBC NSERC Discovery Grants: https://research.ubc.ca/over-36m-awarded-ubc-researchers-through-nserc-2024-discovery-research-program
Tagged with: 2024, Applied Biology, Wine Research Centre