The aims of this
work was to characterise indigenous
Saccharomyces cerevisiae strains in the naturally fermented
juice of
grape varieties Cabernet Sauvignon, Grenache, Tempranillo, Sauvignon Blanc and Verdejo used in the São Francisco
River Valley, northeastern
Brazil. In this study, 155
S. cerevisiae and 60 non-
Saccharomyces yeasts were isolated and identified using physiological tests and sequencing of the D1/D2 domains of the large subunit of the
rRNA gene. Among the non-
Saccharomyces species,
Rhodotorula mucilaginosa was the most common species, followed by
Pichia kudriavzevii,
Candida parapsilosis, Meyerozyma guilliermondii, Wickerhamomyces anomalus,
Kloeckera apis, P. manshurica,
C. orthopsilosis and C. zemplinina. The
population counts of these
yeasts ranged among 1.0 to 19 x 10(5) cfu/mL. A total of 155 isolates of
S. cerevisiae were compared by
mitochondrial DNA restriction
analysis, and five molecular
mitochondrial DNA restriction profiles were detected. Indigenous
strains of
S. cerevisiae isolated from
grapes of the São Francisco Valley can be further tested as potential starters for
wine production.