(Wines&Vines) - About five years ago, European yeast supplier Fermentis began to develop a brand of yeast that the company trademarked as E2U, which stands for Easy to Use. The goal was to develop a type of yeast that would make starting fermentations simpler. As all winemakers know, harvest is a crazy time of year where all manner of tasks can require more time and effort than there is time to complete them. If some critical elements could be simplified, it would help winemakers manaage the craziness of that time of year.

 I met with the Fermentis staff at the 2018 Unified Symposium to learn about the newer yeast strains they had recently released and the efforts they had taken with the E2U brand, in particular. The company’s re-introduction of the E2U brand was part of a program to re-evaluate its entire yeast product line and to understand how yeasts strains perform in a wide range of fermentation sources that are different from the primary target.