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Evidence for S. cerevisiae Fermentation in Ancient Wine

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Abstract

Saccharomyces cerevisiae is the principal yeast used in modern fermentation processes, including winemaking, breadmaking, and brewing. From residue present inside one of the earliest known wine jars from Egypt, we have extracted, amplified, and sequenced ribosomal DNA from S. cerevisiae. These results indicate that this organism was probably responsible for wine fermentation by at least 3150 B.C. This inference has major implications for the evolution of bread and beer yeasts, since it suggests that S. cerevisiae yeast, which occurs naturally on the surface bloom of grapes, was also used as an inoculum to ferment cereal products.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Bauer Center for Genomics Research, Harvard University, 7 Divinity Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA

    Duccio Cavalieri

  2. Museum Applied Science Center for Archaeology (MASCA), University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA

    Patrick E. McGovern

  3. Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA

    Daniel L. Hartl

  4. Department of Molecular and Cell Biology, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA

    Robert Mortimer

  5. Dipartimento di Biologia Animale e Genetica, University of Florence, Via romana 17-19, 50125 Florence, Italy

    Mario Polsinelli

Authors
  1. Duccio Cavalieri
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  2. Patrick E. McGovern
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  3. Daniel L. Hartl
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  4. Robert Mortimer
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  5. Mario Polsinelli
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Correspondence to Duccio Cavalieri.

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Cavalieri, D., McGovern, P.E., Hartl, D.L. et al. Evidence for S. cerevisiae Fermentation in Ancient Wine . J Mol Evol 57 (Suppl 1), S226–S232 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00239-003-0031-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00239-003-0031-2

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