INDIGENOUS OENOCOCCUS OENI STRAINS SELECTED FROM TYPICAL APULIA WINE BY GENETIC MARKERS

Oenococcus oeni is the most important LAB species involved in MLF. High genotypic heterogeneity of O. oeni strains and a further divergence within the bacterial strain population has been demonstrated. Genotypic diversity seems to be correlated with different metabolic characteristics of bacteria and this may affect the organoleptic properties of obtained wines. The aim of this work was to detect several genes involved in important metabolic pathways (i.e. citrate, sulphur and arginine metabolisms) in 10 indigenous O. oeni strains selected from Negroamaro wine, a red table wine (Apulia, Italy). This work revealed several new genetic markers that made possible to use a PCR detection approach to investigate strain heterogeneity for a large range of genes encoding enzymes of oenological relevance.