Regional Institute of Wine and Oil

Inoveno, the project to improve Sicilian wines

Improve the offer of Sicilian wine products. This is the objective of the project entitled "Inoveno", strongly supported by IRVOS and which involves various companies in the sector and wineries in the Region. At the base, the production of wines with selected yeasts in order to obtain wines distinguishable from those obtained from the same must. All with a view to increasing the competitiveness of these wine products. The project will be presented on July 10th at the Albergo delle Povere in Palermo and on August 2nd in Ustica.

The project falls within Measure 124: "Cooperation for the development of new products, processes and technologies in the agricultural, food and forestry sectors" of the Rural Development Program (PSR) Sicily 2007-2013. The measure in fact provides support for cooperation projects for the transfer, verification and testing of innovation aimed at increasing the competitiveness of businesses.

IRVOS has recently created a new variety of Saccharomyces cerevisiae yeasts for oenological use. Previous research has shown that the use of these strains guarantees the production of qualitatively and quantitatively different secondary aromas, compared to those produced by yeasts selected in other geographical areas and on the market today, both in white and red fermentations. than in bottle refermentations.

Here are the three fundamental points on which the “Inoveno” project is based:

1) Production of quality red and white wines in Sicilian wineries with new yeast strains selected with powdery development and characterized by excellent values of the main technological characteristics (fermentative vigour, resistance to sulphites, alcohol tolerance, low production of volatile acidity and sulphides) and for red wines with a high content of polyphenols, while for white wines, with a low content of vinylphenols.

2) Production of quality rosé wines in Sicilian wineries with innovative oenological protocols that provide an optimal level of extraction for the recovery of important aromatic and mineral fractions of the peripheral part of the berry. In the pre-harvest and harvest times, the vineyards from which to source the best grapes for the production of rosé wines will be identified, preferably grapes from the Nero d'Avola vine, as it is the most widespread native vine and has a good set of terpene aromas which give the wine has a scent of red fruit.

3) Production of quality sparkling wines in Sicilian wineries: brilliant, with fine and persistent perlage, fresh, with good acidity and delicate aroma. Specifically, native vines such as Grecanico, Catarrato, Inzolia and Grillo will be used which, when properly mixed, can give rise to base wines suitable for sparkling wine production. We will therefore use grapes coming from vineyards with high production potential, to thus have musts with a low sugar content, and therefore subsequently wines with low alcohol content. The base wine obtained will be after clarification, stabilization and sterile filtration, subjected to refermentation with the two methods currently adopted by the sparkling wine industries: in the bottle (classic method) or in an autoclave (Charmat method). In the case of the classic method, a yeast strain selected by the IRVV capable of improving the organoleptic qualities of the product and compatible with use for refermentation in the bottle will be used.

Below are the project partners:

IRVOS

IZS Sicily

Coribia

Cresm

Gatti Estate

Primavera social winery

Colomba Bianca Social Winery

Alto Belice Social Winery

Cantine Europa Soc. Coop.

Patria scrl

Assovini Sicily

Hts Oenology

Barbera Enochemical Center of Barbera FM sas

UBIQ srl