Effects of Cultivar Factors on Fermentation Characteristics and Volatile Organic Components of Strawberry Wine

Strawberry wine production is a considerable approach to solve the problem of the Chinese concentrated harvesting period and the short shelf life of strawberries, but the appropriative strawberry cultivars for fermentation are still undecided. In this study, the strawberry juice and wines of four typical strawberry cultivars named Akihime (ZJ), Sweet Charlie (TCL), Snow White (BX), and Tongzhougongzhu (TZ) were thoroughly characterized for their physicochemical indicators, bioactive compounds, and volatile organic components (VOCs) to determine the optimal strawberry cultivars for winemaking. The results showed that there were significant differences in the total sugar content, pH, total acid, and other physicochemical indexes in the strawberry juice of different cultivars, which further affected the physicochemical indexes of fermented strawberry wine. Moreover, the content of polyphenols, total flavonoids, vitamin C, and color varied among the four strawberry cultivars. A total of 42 VOCs were detected in the strawberry juice and wines using headspace solid-phase microextraction coupled with gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (HS-SPME-GC-MS), and 3-methyl-1-butanol, linalool, trans-2-pinanol, hexanoic acid, and hexanoic acid ethyl ester were the differential VOCs to identify the strawberry wine samples of different cultivars. Overall, strawberry cultivar ZJ had a relatively high VOC and bioactive compound content, indicating that it is the most suitable cultivar for strawberry wine fermentation. In addition to determining the relatively superior fermentation characteristics of cultivar ZJ, the results may provide a theoretical basis for the raw material quality control and quality improvement of strawberry wine.