Yeasts isolated from natural environments can reflect regional identity and produce distinctive flavor and aroma profiles that differ from those obtained with industrial brewing strains. In this study, we developed LNY2, a regionally distinctive sake yeast strain, by breeding a wild Saccharomyces cerevisiae isolate (Sado8) collected from the Sado Island Gold Mines, a UNESCO World Heritage site in Niigata, Japan. Sado8 was crossed with a sake yeast haploid harboring both the arginase-deficient car1 mutation and the cerulenin-resistant FAS2-G3748A mutation, and hybrids were selected on a medium containing cerulenin with arginine as the sole nitrogen source, without introducing auxotrophic markers into the wild strain. The resulting strain, LNY2, fermented as efficiently as the parental industrial strain S8 while producing significantly more ethyl caproate (a key contributor to Ginjo-ka), no detectable urea (a precursor of ethyl carbamate), and only low levels of 4-vinylguaiacol. Sake-making experiments using up to 400 kg of total rice confirmed the feasibility of applying LNY2 under commercial production conditions. Collectively, this study demonstrates that mating-based breeding with wild S. cerevisiae isolates offers a practical approach to developing region-specific sake yeasts from local yeast resources.
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Funding
Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, and Fisheries, Japan
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Jiangnan University
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