“The majority of the ferment will be carried out by Saccharomyces cerevisiae. The question is, will it be wild strains of this yeast that are locally derived, or a single strain that’s resident in the winery and is hijacking the fermentation?”
“The best answer we can give to this question is: It depends…”
But is that really the important question? Maybe it doesn’t matter that much. For those who have done both native and innoculated ferments, its obvious that the fermentation starts in a very different way but finishes pretty much the same. The native starts much slower since it has to build a population of S. Cerevisiae letting other yeasts handle the beginning. So regardless where the native comes from, its a longer ferment with more skin time, a later peak temperature, and includes compounds from the early non-Sach ferment. Maybe these differences are more important than the if yeast rode in on the fruit or dive bombed from the ceiling. But a great article that presented all sides. Thanks for posting.