Barrel aging is crucial for the production of high-quality wines, with barrel reuse playing a key role in this process. Therefore, disinfecting and cleaning barrels are vital to prevent health and safety issues, being B. bruxellensis one of the most extended problems. In this study, naturally contaminated oak barrels with B. bruxellensis were immersed during 3 h in four Plasma Activated Water (PAW) generated for 1.5 min, 5 min, 15 min and 30 min. The presence of secondary radicals (OH•, NO•, NO2•) was observed after HPLC and spectrometry analysis. The results suggested that those reactive species played an important role in the inactivation of B. bruxellensis. PAW_5 (generated during 5 min), which achieved a reduction of 3.49 ± 0.83 logarithmic units in B. bruxellensis population, was chosen as the best one in terms of economic and time consumption. Thus, an ecofriendly, sustainable and inexpensive solution was presented to inactivate B. bruxellensis from wine barrels.

The author Ana Sainz-García is thankful to the program of pre-doctoral contracts for the training of research staff funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation. The author Ignacio Muro-Fraguas, thanks the program of post-doctoral orientation contracts for the training of research staff funded by the autonomous community of La Rioja. The author Rocío Escribano-Viana as postdoctoral researcher of the University of La Rioja, thanks the postdoctoral training program funded by the Ministry of Universities.

Peer reviewed