Method of inducing malolactic fermentation in wine or fruit juice by direct inoculation with a non-activated started culture

A method of converting malic acid in a wine or a fruit juice to lactic acid, comprising adding directly to said wine or fruit juice a frozen or freeze-dried composition comprising a Ln. oenos strain, without any preceding activation, adaptation and/or expansion of the composition and keeping the wine or the fruit juice under conditions which allow conversion of the malic acid, to obtain a malolactically fermented wine or fruit juice having a content of malic acid which is at the most 0.5 g per l, wherein said Ln. oenos strain, when it is introduced into a wine containing at least 4 g of malic acid per liter, at a concentration of colony forming units which is in a range of 5×106 to 5×107 per ml of the wine, results in a malolactically fermented wine containing at the most 0.5 g malic acid per liter within a period which is at the most 15 days, wherein said Ln. oenos strain is malolactically active in wine or fruit juice and has least one of the following characteristics when it in a freeze-dried state is added directly to wine without any preceding activation, adaptation and/or expansion step:

• (i) a survival rate which is in the range of 90% to 100% in a wine at a temperature in the range of 18 to 21° C. said wine having an ethanol content in the range of 10.5 to 13 vol %. a pH in the range of 3.2 to 3.6 and a content of SO2 which is in the range of 0 to 26 mg per l, or
• (ii) a survival rate of at least 50% in a malic acid-containing wine having a pH of 3.2 or lower and containing at least 25 mg SO2 per l and at least 12 vol % ethanol, or
• (iii) a survival rate which is in the range of 80% to 100% after 2 days at a temperature of 20° C. in a wine prepared by veasting a sterile Riesling grape fruit juice without the addition of sulphite, the wine containing 11.5 vol % ethanol, 3.9 g/l of malic acid, 3.5 g/l of residual sugar and having a pH of 3.15.