Artificial Botrytization Improves Fermentation Performance of Persimmon Wine

While sucrose chaptalization is commonly used in persimmon wine production to achieve adequate fermentable sugar levels, the fermentation suitability of a persimmon substrate modified by artificial botrytization has not been adequately investigated. In this study, persimmon must obtained from Botrytis cinerea-treated fruit and a sucrose-chaptalized control were fermented using the same yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae Fermivin) and temperature (20 °C) conditions. The noble rot-treated group displayed gradual changes in appearance during storage and faster alcohol production and reducing sugar depletion during fermentation compared with the control. Despite lower initial soluble solids (21.50 °Brix) compared with the control (23.00 °Brix), the noble rot-treated group achieved a higher final alcohol content (11.60% vs. 8.80%) within a shorter fermentation period (9 vs. 16 days). These findings suggest that artificial botrytization may serve as a distinct pre-fermentation treatment in persimmon wine production compared with simple sucrose chaptalization. However, further studies are needed to elucidate the compositional and metabolic factors underlying these differences.