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Roundness in wine is in increasing demand on the market as new consumers are not used to highly structured wines and tend to buy more and more ‘ready to drink’ wines that do not require aging in bottle. Winemakers are looking for faster ways to bring high quality wines to the market. Roundness is an important component of the body of the wine as it balances the structure (polyphenols) and the acidity. Traditionally a round mouthfeel comes from the polysaccharides such as mannoproteins that are released by the autolyzing fine lies during Elevage. In red wines these polysaccharides interact with the polyphenols and proteins to increase the body, soften the wine and decrease the astringency. However, as exciting as it is to see the wine evolve with time this is a very complex and slow process that can create microbiological and organoleptic risks and involve an important immobilization of the wine cellar resources. This is the reason why aging on lies is in decline in most countries. Nowadays there are plenty of different components of the roundness and tools that winemakers can play with.
BY CHOOSING THE RIGHT YEAST WINEMAKERS CAN IMPROVE THE MOUTHFEEL OF THEIR WINES.
Among other things yeasts differ by their autolysis capacity and their richness in polysaccharides and peptides. In red wines this will affect the general polyphenol extraction and perception of the tannins. Some yeasts such as HD S135 for example are very popular right now because they have been selected to improve your polyphenol extraction (tannins and anthocyanins) but also to produce quickly smoother tannins for a rounder finish. On the white wine side, GV S107 will be a better choice to produce a round mouthfeel than BC S103 or CK S102. For each wine there is an obvious yeast for its fermentation! SpringCell™ Manno is a product derived from yeast that can mimic the aging on lies process at a faster speed. Immediately available in the wine the added mannoproteins can quickly improve the roundness of the white or red wines but also ‘replace’ natural lies in case of suspected spoilage. SpringFiner™, our innovative yeast protein extract-based fining agent is also a perfect product to reduce astringency and improve sweetness and roundness because of its small sweet peptides composition.Of course, another component of the roundness in wine is the alcohol that adds viscosity and body to wines and the level of residual sugar in the finished wine. This is especially true for white wines. With increasing ethanol tolerance and resistance within the Fermentis range winemakers can trust our yeasts to complete the fermentation even at high Brix. Finally, the ‘myth’ that the amount of glycerol produced by the yeast helped the roundness of white wines is questioned as we now know that most yeast on the market are under the threshold of perception of 8-10 g/L.
