Chr. Hansen has announced the availability of a new range of Viniflora products for red wine producers which is said to reverse the classical scheme of fermentation management in wines.
Production of red wine requires two fermentation steps during the winemaking process, the company notes: the alcoholic fermentation where yeasts transform sugars into ethanol and some flavours, traditionally followed by themalolactic fermentation where lactic acid bacteria transform malic acid into lactic acid and a second layer of fermentation related flavours.
“Our approach with Viniflora NoVA is totally opposite,” said Laurent Hubert, marketing director, wine & fermented beverages, Chr. Hansen. “What we now offer to winemakers is to manage their malolactic fermentation in the grape juice before the alcoholic fermentation - a complete change of paradigm.”
Benefits for winemakers are said to include dramatically reduced fermentation time and risk of spoilage.
When the malolactic fermentation happens in grape juice instead of wine, the time of this fermentation phase is considerably decreased. Typically with NoVA, malolactic fermentation is managed in 1 to 3 days as opposed to 3 to 12 weeks today. The wines go through malolactic and alcoholic fermentation within 10 days and are then microbiologically stable.
According to Chr. Hansen, in warm climate regions, red wines are frequently spoiled by indigenous flora from different moulds, yeasts and bacteria species that bring a high frequency of downgrades to the final wine affecting its quality compared to its initial potential, e.g. off-flavours or acetic acid (volatile acidity) produced from the grape juice sugars.
“Speed is absolutely crucial in warm climate environments in order to bio-protect the grape juice and the wines from potential contaminants,” said Dr. Hentie Swiegers from Chr. Hansen’s Wine Innovation department and in charge of this development project. “This helps in preserving and expressing the flavour precursors from the grape resulting in a fruit forward wine with a higher flavour intensity and complexity.”
Benefits for consumers are said to include improved wine quality and fewer sulphites.
“Through this new approach, we will help a lot of wineries around the world to limit quality downgrades happening between grape harvesting and alcoholic fermentation or between alcoholic fermentation and malolactic fermentation,” concluded Hubert. “The outcome is higher wine quality or more volume of high quality wines from the same amount of grapes. Ultimately it helps in producing red or rosé wines with far fewer sulphites (preservatives) and this responds well to consumers’ wishes for healthier and more ‘natural’, clean label products.”
NoVA is launched in France, Spain, Portugal, Italy and Bulgaria for the 2014 vintage after which it will be available worldwide.
