Diversity of Wild Yeasts During Spontaneous Fermentation of Wines from Local Grape Varieties in Turkey

This study was conducted to investigate the wild yeast diversity in traditional wine from Turkish grape varieties. Isolated and identified yeast species in wines of grapes from Turkey were compared with those from other countries. The wild yeasts from five different grape varieties were detected by real-time PCR and isolated and/or identified by DNA sequencing techniques. In total, 469 yeast colonies were isolated from selective media at different times from musts and wine samples: 104 from 204 non-Saccharomyces and 47 from 265 Saccharomyces yeast isolates selected based on colony morphology and physiological characteristics were identified using DNA sequencing by internal transcribed spacer (ITS) region (ITS1–5.8S rRNA– ITS2). Nine non-Saccharomyces yeast species belonging to seven genera were identified according to sequencing results: Starmerella bacillaris (syn., Candida zemplinina), Hanseniaspora spp. (H. guilliermondii, H. opuntiae, H. uvarum), Rhodotorula mucilaginosa, Wickerhamomyces anomalus (syn., Pichia anomala), Lachancea thermotolerans, Solicoccozyma aeria, Metschnikowia spp., and Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Results were concordant with the results of the real-time PCR, however, several species were only detected by real-time PCR. Further analysis on strains of non-Saccharomyces species was carried out to construct the phylogenetic tree.