Principal investigator of the project Prof. J. Piškur was awarded in 2012 for Ambassador of Science of the Republic of Slovenia Certificate of Recognition for important achievements in research activities in Slovenia and abroad.
E.01 National awards
This was a closing plenary lecture at the 31st International Specialised Symposium on Yeast in Nova Gorica / Vipava (Slovenia), held by J. Fay. Saccharomyces are frequently found in association with trees, particularly Quercus species. In addition to trees, Saccharomyces cerevisiae is also found in vineyards soil, grape and wine must. While most wine strains of S. cerevisiae have a European origin, S. cerevisiae is not often found on trees in Europe, Portugal and Spain being exceptions. As such, the origin of wine yeasts is not known. In this study, we surveyed vineyards and forests in Slovenia for Saccharomyces species. We found both S. cerevisiae and S. paradoxus within and outside of vineyards. However, S. cerevisiae was more rare in forest samples. Population genomic analysis of these yeast strains will be used to test whether vineyard and forest populations are genetically differentiated from one another.
B.04 Guest lecture
COBISS.SI-ID: 359628331st International Specialized Symposium on Yeast (ISSY31) with focus on yeast fermentations was held between 9th and 12th October 2014 in Hotel Perla in Nova Gorica and at the University of Nova Gorica in Lanthieri Mansion in Vipava. The symposium attended 250 participants from 33 different countries. The symposium was also devoted to the work of recentley deceased prof. Jure Piškur, who was the initiator and main organizer of the conference ISSY31. In addition to the University of Nova Gorica symposium was organized also by University of Lund (Sweden), Institute "Jozef Stefan" and the company Jubi kinase ApS.
B.01 Organiser of a scientific meeting
COBISS.SI-ID: 275780352During the last decades only a limited number of yeast species have been used in commercial wine fermentations. The EU ITN project Cornucopia has recently attempted to reverse this trend and screened a few hundred yeast isolates to identify novel species with a promising aroma potential, which could be employed in wine fermentations. We applied some of these yeasts in Ribolla Gialla must fermentations, with the future aim to intensify the aroma profile of this wine. In our experiments, we performed sequential micro-fermentations starting with a novel yeast species, and after few days a commercial Saccharomyces cerevisiae wine strain was added. Growth rate, competition between the inoculated yeasts, sugar consumption, ethanol accumulation and aroma profile were monitored during these experimental fermentations. Sensory analyses of young wine showed that particularly two of the novel yeasts enriched the aroma profile of the fermented Ribolla must.
B.06 Other
COBISS.SI-ID: 3243003