Our second addition to the range, SafŒno™ PR 106 was carefully selected and tested for the production of sparkling wines elaborated through the closed-tank method such as premium Prosecco.

Releasing intense fruity and floral aromas, whilst also giving a pleasant roundness to the wine without hiding acidity feeling, this yeast strain is ideal for premium sparkling base wines.

SafŒno™ PR 106 also performs very well in many conditions and respects our Easy-To-Use (E2U™) standard meaning it can be pitched straight into the must without prior rehydration.

When we first started our trials with organic molasses and other organic intrants for our yeast propagation, we had no formal guarantees that the resulting yeast produced would be close to our standard range.

Differences in the way we produce our yeast can always affect performance of the product, so to make sure our organic SafŒno™ VR 44 BIO yeast was performing at the same high standards you’ve come to expect from Fermentis products, we carried out extensive comparison tests between both conventional and organic VR 44.How did we compare the two products?

One of the most important criteria to measure is of course cell viability: is the viability of the yeast produced through an organic certified process the same as in our conventional product?

We also performed our standard yeast accelerated ageing test to make sure in time, the organic version would age in a similar way to the standard product.

Last but not least we checked yeast kinetics and compared the two products to see how fermentation performance was affected.

Of course, we were expecting a degree of difference between the two and we had already determined the extent of difference we could accept. The results we got were extremely positive and we will share them with you.

To test the viability of SafŒno™ VR 44 BIO compared to SafŒno™ VR 44, we held trials in a series of different conditions, changing the temperature, media and agitation.

All the results were very positive, there were significant differences in cell viability considering the accuracy of the method (+/- 1%) but never more than 8% between both products in the same conditions (3% in average) and all viabilities remained  high: between 80 and 90%. The graphs above show just a few extracts of the full study, in different media and at different temperatures.

What is ViniLiquid™ and why should you use it?

ViniLiquid™ is still today a highly innovative fermentation activator, developed by Fermentis in order to optimize fermentation performance, especially in the case of poor in nutrient musts. It is a highly degraded autolyzed yeast offering the advantages of both soluble yeast intracellular content and insoluble yeast hulls.

ViniLiquid™’s unique composition helps you improve and secure fermentation thanks to:

• Its strong supply of essential amino acids drastically increasing YAN (Yeast Available Nitrogen) level,
• Its supply in growth and survival factors
• Its detoxification properties and support effect

Its unique liquid formulation makes it easily and directly dispersible into the must, pumpable and safe (no yeast powder inhalation risks). As such, it was our first Easy To Use (E2U™) yeast derivative!

Fermentation times using different activators

Chardonnay must (Potential ABV: 12.5%, pH 3.4 and initial YAN: 188mg/L).

Addition of 10mg/l of O₂ at maximum fermentation speed (S_max) then equivalent supply of 20mg/l of YAN and 13.4g/hl of hulls through ViniLiquid™ single addition or mix of soluble yeast derivative and SpringCell™ yeast hulls addition at 1/3^rd of the fermentation advancement. Yeast used: SafŒno™ CK S102.

Whilst the addition of O₂ alone (blue line) definitely decreases fermentation time, it is clear that adding a mix  of yeast derivative and SpringCell™ (red line) is a lot more efficient.

But undoubtably, the most efficient way to speed up and secure fermentation is through the addition of O₂ and ViniLiquid™, which can decrease fermentation time by up to 42% when compared to the control fermentation.

There are strong synergistical effects between O₂ and ViniLiquid™ together. However these results show that ViniLiquid™ is more powerful than a dry yeast autolysate with a similar composition, thus reinforcing the point of leaving it liquid.

Residual sugars after 238h of fermentation

The graph above shows that after 238h of fermentation, the combination of O₂ and ViniLiquid™ led to a fully complete fermentation (0.50g/l of residual sugars) and clearly illustrated that in this must, O₂ supply alone was not sufficient to achieve the fermentation whereas the combination with dry yeast derivatives achieved fermentation a bit later.

In a lot of documentations about wine yeasts, you will probably find an information about their “Killer” status… scary indication isn’t it? Let’s talk a bit about the meaning of this status – which seems like it was taken straight from a thriller movie!

Certain yeast strains can effectively produce and excrete proteins that are toxic for other strains. These proteins will bind to a specific receptor located on the surface of the cell wall and slowly induce the death of the affected strain.

There are 3 common types of strains: “Killer” ones which secrete the toxin and don’t possess its receptor (K+R-), “Sensitive” which don’t secrete the toxin but can bind to it (K-R+) and “Neutral” which neither excrete nor bind (K-R-).As several toxins exist, in the wine world we almost always talk about the “K2” toxin when referring to the killer factor as this protein expresses its activity at wine pH (2.8-4.8).

However, the ratio between Killer and Sensitive strains – in order to move the population towards the predominance of Killer strains in winemaking conditions – is highly variable, from 1/1000 to 25/1!

The efficiency of the toxin depends on several parameters including temperature (thermo-sensitive) and pH (inactive below 2.9) which are the most important and can also be affected by the presence of polyphenols or additives.

But above all, the strains themselves show very different killer activity or sensitivity degrees…

Anyhow, even if it is highly variable, it is generally recognized that the possession of this killer factor gives a better chance of implantation of said strain into the must and that is why it is something we rather look for when selecting wine yeast….

And we haven’t even mentioned the “suicide” strains (K+R+) which secrete toxins that can affect themselves… but that’s another story !