Population dynamics of natural Saccharomyces strains during wine fermentation

Using mitochondrial DNA restriction endonuclease analysis, the dynamics of the natural Saccharomyces cerevisiae strains present in spontaneous wine fermentations have been studied. We observed a sequential substitution of Sacch. cerevisiae strains along fermentation agreeing with different fermentation phases. When the restriction pattern's similarity (measured as the fraction of shared restriction fragments) was high, a clear sequential substitution of the strains was seen. However, when the similarity was low, although a sequential substitution could be also observed between secondary strains, a clearly predominant strain was present along the whole fermentation process.