Wine reflects the specificity of a terroir, including the native microbiota. In contrast to the use of Saccharomyces cerevisiae commercial starters, a way to maintain wines’ microbial terroir identities, guaranteeing at the same time the predictability and reproducibility of the wines, is the selection of autochthonous Saccharomyces and non-Saccharomyces strains towards optimal enological characteristics for the chosen area of isolation. This field has been explored but there is a lack of a compendium covering the main methods to use. Autochthonous wine yeasts from different areas of Slovakia were identified and tested, in the form of colonies grown either on nutrient agar plates or in grape must micro-fermentations, for technological and qualitative enological characteristics. Based on the combined results, Saccharomyces cerevisiae PDA W 10, Lachancea thermotolerans 5-1-1 and Metschnikowia pulcherrima 125/14 were selected as potential wine starters. This paper, as a mixture of experimental and review contributions, provides a compendium of methods used to select autochthonous wine yeasts. Thanks to the presence of images, this compendium could guide other researchers in screening their own yeast strains for wine production.

Effects of processing and extraction solvents on antioxidant properties and other characteristics were evaluated for ten medicinal plant species originating from two different localities and two production years. A combination of spectroscopic and liquid chromatography techniques possessed data for multivariate statistics. Water, 50% (v/v) ethanol, and dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) were compared to select the most suitable solvent for the isolation of functional components from the frozen/dried medicinal plants. DMSO and 50% (v/v) ethanol were evaluated as more efficient for phenolic compounds and colorants extraction, while water was more useful for element extraction. Drying and extraction of herbs with 50% (v/v) ethanol was the most appropriate treatment to ensure a high yield of most compounds. The satisfactory differentiation of herbs (61.8–100%) confirmed the significant effect of the processing, geographical, and seasonal factors on target functional component concentrations. Total phenolic and total flavonoid compounds content, total antioxidant activity expressed as TAA, yellowness, chroma, and browning index were identified as the most important markers for medicinal plant differentiation.

The antioxidant activity, total polyphenol content (TPC), and total flavonoids content (TFC) of sea buckthorn juice was analyzed with electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) and ultraviolet-visible (UV-VIS) in ethanol, methanol, and acetone extracts. The choice of a suitable solvent system is necessary so as not to skew the results. Undiluted juice of sea buckthorn berries is not suitable for the mentioned analyzes. Sea buckthorn juices were evaporated under vacuum until completely dry and then dissolved in 100% methanol, 96% ethanol, 70% ethanol, and 50% acetone. The 70% ethanol extract of sea buckthorn juice had an average of 1.3- and 1.6-times greater TPC and TFC values than other extracts, respectively. The 70% ethanol extract of juice contained 29 mg gallic acid equivalents (GAE)/g dw and 4 mg catechin equivalents (CE)/g dw. The results of the antioxidant activity of the extracts determined by EPR spectroscopy had an error rate ~ 2.5 times lower than the UV-VIS analysis. The highest antioxidant activity (123 mmol of Trolox equivalents/kg extract) was determined with EPR and ABTS radical in the 70% ethanol extract. This method correlated well with the TFC levels.