The strict requirements and high costs, which are the
main limitation of PEF technology for food pasteurization,
would not be necessary for inactivation of wine spoilage
microorganisms. In this case, a level of inactivation between
3 and 4 log10 cycles could be enough to facilitate
the growth of active dry wine yeast and to avoid microbial
spoilage. The specific energy required to obtain this level of
inactivation should be around 150e300 kJ/kg. These energy
requirements could be translated to an approximate
cost of between 4.2 and 8.4 V/ton. Nevertheless, it is necessary
a great effort to diminish cost of the PEF generator
so that the application of PEF to microbial decontamination
in wineries can be considered.