- Chilean and foreign experts met in a seminar organized by the Center of Studies in Sciences and Food Technology of Universidad de Santiago de Chile, where they discussed the different options that they currently have in wine industry and the use of yeasts to determine, control and counteract variables that can affect the quality of this product.
Wine industry is constantly seeking to increase its competitiveness through sustainable solutions. One of the main current challenges of genetics and biology in relation to fungi and yeasts is how to face the significant environmental changes that we are undergoing. In this context, different experts in this field met on November, 21st, at the Plaza San Francisco Hotel, in Santiago, in the seminar Hongos y Levaduras del vino: del laboratorio a la mesa (Fungi and Yeasts for Wine: form the Lab to the Table).
The activity was organized by the Center of Studies in Sciences and Food Technology (Cecta, in Spanish), of Universidad de Santiago de Chile and sponsored by the CONICYT REDES 150077 project and the Núcleo Milenio MNFISB (Fungal Integrativa and Synthetic Biology). Many speakers from France, USA and Chile participated in the event, including professors at Universidad de Santiago de Chile and at Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile.
The seminar covered the different strategies currently used in wine industry and highlighted the importance of yeasts in the process of improving the quality of this product through different scientific methods.
Dr Jean-Luc Legras and Dr Bruno Blondin, both from the INRA Sciences pour l’Oenologie, Montpellier, France, were two of the foreign guests to the activity. Dr Blondin explained the difference between the selected yeast and native yeasts in wine elaboration.
For her part, Dr Angélica Ganga, professor at Universidad de Santiago de Chile, gave the presentation “La relación entre ciencia y las necesidades del sector productivo nacional” (The relation between science and the needs of the domestic productive sector), in which she highlighted the production of Chilean wine industry and its innovations.
Science and nature
In the context of the discussion about the consumption of natural non-genetically modified products, the experts said that modified yeasts- although they are created in laboratory- are not really different from the natural ones, as the modifications only seek to produce better quality wine.
Dr Francisco Cubillos, researcher at the Cecta of Universidad de Santiago de Chile explained that there are two strategies: one is to generate non-modified organisms and the other, to use what is already in nature and through crossbreeding, obtain new organisms, new yeasts.
Chilean wine industry is not behind regarding these strategies. According to Dr Cubillos, “The fact that we are able to do science in Chile with national yeasts or that we make efforts to generate technology to improve yeasts, places our country at an international level, comparable to what the best groups in the world are doing. If we are able to improve our yeasts, we can give wine an added value.”
Translated by Marcela Contreras
