The lactone of wine significantly contributes to the bouquet of aromatic white wines such as Gewurztraminer. This molecule is extremely noticeable at low concentrations by the human nose. Researchers at the Institute of Plant Molecular Biology in Strasbourg and at the INRA in Colmar, show that cytochrome P450 induced during maturation of the bay, can form large amounts of carboxylinalol, and that this molecule is then very slowly converted to wine lactone over time. This study is published in the journal New Phytologist.
The unveiled origin of wine lactone, a typical aroma of Gewurztraminer wine
