Inactivation of Brettanomyces bruxellensis by High Hydrostatic Pressure technology

Abstract

© 2015. High Hydrostatic Pressure (HHP) technology was tested on two strains of Brettanomyces bruxellensis isolated from Rioja red wines for analyzing the microbial inactivation reached in different oenological conditions. With this purpose, these strains were inoculated in synthetic wine with different pH and ethanol content. The inactivations reached with 100MPa, 200MPa and 300MPa applied from one to seven minutes were tested just after the treatment and after a week.Current consumers demand quality, free-additive wines. This has made oenological industry search alternative non-thermal technologies. The present results supported that high pH and high ethanol wines shortly treated at 100MPa made B.bruxellensis undetectable. Moreover, low pH and low ethanol wines content should be at least treated at 200MPa, and wines with intermediate ethanol content should be carefully analyzed in terms of strain composition before applying HHP. Finally, treatments at 300MPa managed a complete inactivation regardless of oenological conditions.