Red and white wine lees as a novel source of emulsifiers and foaming agents

Wine lees are an under-exploited sludge-like material mainly consisting of yeast cells that, upon fermentation, settle at the bottom wine tanks. Lees from commercial red and white winemaking were processed to yield mannoprotein-rich extracts. An established autoclave-based extraction protocol, as well a simplified version it, applied. The composition obtained extracts was determined. Extracts tested emulsifying foaming agents in model food systems benchmarked against analogues derived laboratory-grown cultures same two strains used for wines production. All showed good functionalities agents. However, some differences noted both functionality, these related purification process used, strain, extract's origin (red lees, lab-grown yeasts). real which contained also grape-derived polyphenols, performed equally or better than corresponding strains. Both can be novel effective source emulsifiers representing valid alternative biomass produced bioreactors potentially industry.