TY - JOUR T1 - Identification and Frequencies of Endophytic Microbes within Healthy Grape Berries JF - American Journal of Enology and Viticulture JO - Am J Enol Vitic. DO - 10.5344/ajev.2018.18033 SP - ajev.2018.18033 AU - Megan E. Hall AU - Wayne F. Wilcox Y1 - 2018/12/21 UR - http://www.ajevonline.org/content/early/2018/12/13/ajev.2018.18033.abstract N2 - Intact, healthy grape berries were sampled from vineyards in the states of Washington and New York, USA and Tasmania, Australia, and from bunches of table grapes exported from Chile that were purchased on two occasions in a U.S. supermarket. Endophytic microbes were isolated on media conducive to fungi or bacteria and subsequently identified by Illumina sequencing of their DNA. Species of the yeast genera Metschnikowia, Pichia, and Hanseniaspora were recovered from every set of samples, as were species of the bacterial genera Acinetobacter, Burkholderia and Bacillus; species of the bacterial genera Acetobacter and Gluconobacter also were recovered from vineyard samples from New York and Tasmania and from supermarket-purchased grapes. Multiple other fungal and bacterial species were recovered less often. When quantified for the Washington samples and one set from the supermarket, non-Saccharomyces yeast species represented the vast majority of fungal identifications, whereas the distribution of various bacterial species varied widely between and within the two sources. The endophytic presence of these microbes within grape berries has implications with respect not only to the potential development of sour rot but also to the broader concept of microbial terroir in wine quality. ER -