**Author details**

*Advances in Grape and Wine Biotechnology*

to regional characteristic terroir. Genetic variances between *S. cerevisiae* strains lead to alterations in the wines' metabolic profile affecting their sensory qualities [100–105]. Fluctuations in the expression levels of key enzymes affecting wine's aroma among different *S. cerevisiae* strains isolated from diverse geographic areas of New Zealand indicated correlations among geographic region and genetic background as well as the phenotypic profile of *S. cerevisiae* [103]*.* However, the phenotypic plasticity of *S. cerevisiae* to produce altered phenotypes based on the fermentation microenvironment was found to affect the metabolic profile of wines [104]. Moreover, genotypic characterization of different strains of *O. oeni*, *isolated from diverse geographic regions* during the process of malolactic fermentation, *revealed a highly diverse genetic background among the strains derived from different locations*, *but also strains categorized in the same phylogenetic group* were detected in diverse regions, adapted in the same type of wine [105]. Noteworthy, the genomic, transcriptomic, and proteomic profile of various *O. oeni* strains was found to be strongly influenced by microenvironmental conditions during winemaking [106–108]. *Brettanomyces bruxellensis* (or *Dekkera bruxellensis*), a yeast implicated in wine spoilage producing volatile phenols that create unpleasant flavors, was found to be composed by strains with differences in their genetic background that affected their adaptation in the wine-producing environment [109–112]. Microsatellite analysis of 1488 *B. bruxellensis* strains isolated from diverse geographic locations identified that the *B. bruxellensis* population was differentiated not only based on ploidy level, culture method, and fermentation environment but also on the origin of isolation [112], highlighting again the influence of geographic region in combination with

additional influencing factors to microbial terroir formation.

microbial communities to wines' sensorial characteristics.

Regional characteristics such as climate, agronomic practices, grape variety, and soil chemistry may influence the composition of the local microbial communities creating a characteristic regional microbial profile described with the term "microbial terroir." The composition of a particular variety grape microbiome, beyond its dynamic fluctuations during fermentation, was found to be able to provide indications regarding the chemical composition and the sensorial characteristics of the produced wines. The existence of specific regional microbial biomarkers, able to predict the metabolic composition of the wine, is a powerful indication of the existence of a clear association between region and local microbiome. Future studies based on the combination of HTS technologies with metabolomic studies may provide more enhanced evidence regarding the contribution of the regional

The authors would like to acknowledge the financial contribution from project AGROID funded by the INTERREG Greece-Cyprus 2014–2020 Program which is cofunded by the European Union (ERDF) and National Resources of Greece and Cyprus.

None of the authors has a financial or personal relationship with other people or

organizations that could inappropriately influence or bias this publication.

**106**

**7. Conclusion**

**Acknowledgements**

**Conflict of interest**

Dimitrios A. Anagnostopoulos† \*, Eleni Kamilari† and Dimitrios Tsaltas Department of Agricultural Sciences, Biotechnology and Food Science, Cyprus University of Technology, Lemesos, Cyprus

\*Address all correspondence to: dimitris.tsaltas@cut.ac.cy † These authors are equally contributed to this work.

© 2019 The Author(s). Licensee IntechOpen. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
