The present study showed that bacterial survival appeared to
depend on whether the wine had been sterilized or not. In unsterilized
wine, the inoculated pathogens would have had to
compete with naturally-occurring microorganisms within the wine
for survival. Non-sterilized turbid rice wine contained more “natural”
microbial flora, including lactic acid bacteria, acetic acid
bacteria, and fungi (Table 1). In particular, non-sterilized wines
contained high populations of lactic acid bacteria (>7 log CFU/ml),