Wine is a fermented product of fruit juice. Mulberry and apple juice can also be used to produce wine. Several factors influence the alcoholic fermentation of the must; therefore, the optimization of the mulberry wine fermentation conditions with the dry yeast strain Saccharomyces bayanus (concentration varied from 0.15 to 0.25 g/L), fermentation conditions as pH value (from 3.5 to 4.5), and total soluble solid (TSS) content (24–28°Brix) were performed in this study. To evaluate the influence of these factors, a Box–Behnken design was used to minimize the number of factor combinations required, which allows the determination of optimal fermentation conditions (pH, TSS content, and dry yeast concentration) to produce wines with high alcohol and bioactive compounds (total anthocyanin (TAC) and polyphenol content (TPC)). Based on the analysis of experimental data, the second-order response surface models were developed to describe the relationship between initial pH value, TSS, and dry yeast concentration on wine quality acquisition (ethanol content and bioactive compounds). The results of the analysis of variance (ANOVA) showed that the model setup by response surface quadratic regression was suitable for predicting the wine quality. It was observed that the quality of the apple-fortified mulberry wine was significantly affected by all variables. The optimal contents of ethanol, total anthocyanin, and total polyphenol were achieved at 12.97% (v/v), 171.85 mg/L, and 87.17 mgGAE/L, respectively, when fermented in juice medium with optimal values of pH, TSS, and yeast concentration of 3.9, 26°Brix, and 0.22 g/L, respectively.

Keywords: apple-fortified mulberry wine; S. bayanus; ethanol; bioactive compounds; optimization.