3.4. Wine and Juice Industry

In fruit processing it is very important to achieve a good maceration of the fruit tissue. The most used enzymes in use in this industry, Pectinases, are used with this aim.

There are many distinct commercial preparations combining main activities of polygalacturonase, pectin esterease and pectin lyase. These pectinases offer several advantages:

• higher pressing yield
• reduction of viscosity
• improved filtration and clarification.

In non-conventional red wine production, in order to speed-up the extraction of pigmented anthocyanins from the grape skins, the grape mash is heated and large amounts of pectin are reliesed to the juice that becomes too viscous. In this wine-making process pectinases should be added²³.

Hemicellulases, amylases, glucanases and proteases are also commonly used as processing aids.

There are different enzyme "cocktails" optimized accordingly to:

• the type of fruit (apple, orange, peach, grape, etc)
• the manufacturing process
• the quality desired for the end-product.