ABSTRACT
Wine is a traditional fermented food with good research knowledge. The main microbes involved are yeasts (mainly Saccharomyces cerevisiae), which carry out the alcoholic fermentation (AF) producing ethanol from must sugars, but lactic acid bacteria (LAB) are the other group of microorganisms that have also an important positive role in wine (Wibowo et al. 1985, Henick-Kling 1993, Lonvaud-Funel 1999, Liu 2002). Many white wines and almost all red wines undergo a secondary fermentation, usually after AF, called malolactic fermentation (MLF), a process carried out by LAB, in which dicarboxylic l-malic acid is decarboxylated into monocarboxylic l-lactic acid. This implies a deacidication, which is the main positive outcome of LAB in wine (Davis et al. 1985, Ribéreau-Gayon et al. 1998).
