Identificazione al microscopio ottico di muffe presenti su tappi Significato nel controllo di qualità

Moulds, yeasts and bacteria are always associated with corks, from the slab to the cork stopper. Many studies point out that the presence of a high number of microorganisms is a risk factor for the cork and the wine quality; they also show the cork microflora influence on the mouldy and earthy off-flavours due to volatile metabolites such as 2,4,6, trichloroanisole. The most frequent fungi metabolites are related to the fungi genus, species and strains, and this is why it is important to identify them. Both macroscopic and microscopic morphological characteristics of the fungal isolates, that allowed to identify, at a genus and species level, the most frequently fungi found on cork, are given here. Finally, the AA underline that this traditional method is not enough to correlate the presence of a mould species to a possible appearance of unpleasant aromas and tastes in wines.