Microbial contribution to wine aroma and its intended use for wine quality improvement

This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution.-- et al.Wine is a complex matrix that includes components with different chemical natures, the volatile compounds being responsible for wine aroma quality. The microbial ecosystem of grapes and wine, including Saccharomyces and non-Saccharomyces yeasts, as well as lactic acid bacteria, is considered by winemakers and oenologists as a decisive factor influencing wine aroma and consumer’s preferences. The challenges and opportunities emanating from the contribution of wine microbiome to the production of high quality wines are astounding. This review focuses on the current knowledge about the impact of microorganisms in wine aroma and flavour, and the biochemical reactions and pathways in which they participate, therefore contributing to both the quality and acceptability of wine. In this context, an overview of genetic and transcriptional studies to explain and interpret these effects is included, and new directions are proposed. It also considers the contribution of human oral microbiota to wine aroma conversion and perception during wine consumption. The potential use of wine yeasts and lactic acid bacteria as biological tools to enhance wine quality and the advent of promising advice allowed by pioneering -omics technologies on wine research are also discussed.Research in our labs is funded by Grants AGL2015-64522-C2-R (Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness), ALIBIRD-CM 2013 S2013/ABI-2728 (Comunidad de Madrid) and within the framework of the projects IDI-20130192, IDI-20140448 and IDI-20160102 (CDTI, Centre for Industrial Technological Development, Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness, Spain).We acknowledge the support of the publication fee by the CSIC Open Access Publication Support Initiative through its Unit of Information Resources for Research (URICI)