Wine Yeasts

[Rebel Rose]

Conventional wine may also be produced naturally, or may include more than a dozen additives, such as synthetic yeasts, sulphite preservatives and taste and appearance enhancers. Natural, organic methods rely on cultured, not genetically modified yeast for initial fermentation.

This topic is sort of tangential to the Organic thread, but it's something that I would like to single out because I am seeing these references more and more frequently. Somehow, people are getting the idea that commercially available yeasts are not natural.

Now, granted, they're not wild yeasts. But let me assert one more time that commercially available yeasts are simply captured and identified in the wild and propagated (that means grown/multiplied in a controlled environment on natural foods) as a clean, pure strain--without all the unidentified cousins and bacterial houseguests that cohabit with wild yeasts.

You can buy Bordeaux strains, Barolo strains, Riesling strains, etc. etc. They are all completely natural and viable yeasts, they are just separate and identifiable and will have a somewhat predictable effect on grape must and juice.

This morning I am baking a loaf of bread (well, okay in the bread machine) and I am using Fleischmann's 'Rapid Rise' Bread Machine Yeast. At the top of the label it says "All Natural Yeast." Probably they had to say that so consumers and FDA inspectors would not assume it is synthetic, or genetically modified because it comes in a jar.

Granted, if I were a purist, I would set the flour, water and salt mixture in the sunporch and wait for native yeasts to start the fermentation. That's how original sourdough starters are created. But then, if I were purist, I wouldn't be using Gold Medal 'Better for Bread' 'Ideal for Bread Machines' Specialty Flour. I would wait until August, then go down the pond and harvest wild millet, and grind the millet into flour between rocks. That would make one tiny loaf per year.

According to Michael Ruhlman in The Making of a Chef, only 5% of the bread produced in the United States is truly artisanal bread, often made with wild yeasts starters. So to all the people out there decrying the use of "synthetic" yeasts in wine and pleading for all-natural, native-yeast wines, I say you had better be buying only that 5% of artisanal bread for consumption in your home, because no matter what healthy, multi-grain bread you pick up each week at the store--it is made with a pure yeast strain that is deliverred to the bakery in commercially available jars and cans.

[jsolomon]

Hear, hear!

As someone who works with true genetically engineered yeast, I am utterly convinced that there really isn't enough profit to be made at this point by using a genetically modified yeast to change your grape guts into wine.

A typical yeast engineering contract we do is for a well-studied protein and runs well into the millions of dollars. All of these products are for medical purposes. I don't think you can legally get a basically unrefined product (it pains me to call wine unrefined, but I'm speaking in a chemical sense) created from genetically modified organisms into the US food supply.

I have been wrong before, but I do not believe I am far from the truth here. Besides, making wine is close enough to magic for me, I don't want to start paying attention to the "man behind the curtain". However, a pure strain would be nice.