Exploitation of biodiversity in viticulture and oenology to allow a suistanable winemaking

Universally recognized as a resource of inestimable value, biodiversity is becoming a recurring topic in several roundtables. As one of the key theme of the next World Expo, biodiversity has nowadays to face several concepts, such as innovation and technology transfer, which aspire to “zero impact" on ecosystems but that inherently remain related to the productivity meaning. Thus, sustainability becomes the "chance" to maintain all the future human activities and the biodiversity preservation the "tool" to limit the environmental impact of industrial productions. Main contribution to the YeSVitE project of the Italian Partner in Milan will be to handle this topic from an environmental point of view, focusing on the theme of biodiversity analysis and its safeguard, and from an economic/social side, through a wine optimization that promotes the use of yeasts in non-conventional ways. For example, yeast spoilage in beverages has become of increasing importance because of the use of less-severe processing, the great variety of new formulations and the tendency to reduce the use of preservatives. In this context, a better control in the sulphur dioxide manage during winemaking could avoid both the yeast spoilage and, in a sustainable perspective, to limit sulphite in bottled wines. Finally, to face the market, the wine industry should consider the development of innovative wine styles, suitable for the modern consumer needs. Wines with peculiar, distinguishable and intense varietal aroma should be projected with specific grapes varieties and yeast strain, able to amplify the varietal quality.