## 1 Introduction  
Proteins are present in wines in relatively low levels. These essentially comprise plant defense proteins and their concentration in wines is not only dependent on the grape composition (including protein content), but also on the grape variety, maturation conditions [1], and winemaking process as well as on the environmental conditions prevailing during vegetative growth [1, 2]. Protein haze in white wines, where limpidity is an essential sensory quality parameter, is one of the most common non-microbial defects of commercial wines [3]. These proteins can be responsible for wine colloidal instability, forming amorphous sediments or flocculates, and producing a suspended and undesirable haze, before or after bottling, which can cause serious economic losses to the wine producers [4].  
The best commercially available solution for protein haze in the winemaking industry is bentonite, a montmorillonite clay, negatively charged at the wine pH, which removesproteins based on charge interactions and physical adsorption [5]. While bentonite is a natural clay material, it must be mined from special deposits, which limits the sustainability of the application. The use of bentonite presents additional disadvantages comprising: (i) the handling of dust before the application due to the health hazards associated with it; (ii) the disposal of used bentonite; (iii) the direct adsorption of aroma compounds on the bentonite clay, which severely affects the sensory profile of the wine; and (iv) the loss of wine in the form of bentonite lees [6]. Therefore, there is a significant focus on developing alternative economical practices to replace bentonite to stabilize wines. Some of these state-of-the-art practices include the use of magnetic nanoparticles [7], free [8] and immobilized proteases [9], chitosan [10] or chitin-rich yeasts [6], zirconia [11] or low-swelling adsorbing clays [12], together with techniques such as ultrafiltration [13] or flash pasteurization [14].  
The loss of aromas resulting from bentonite fining, widely used since 1950, has been reported several times by the professionals [15], but the induced loss is poorly quantified. Even if some reports suggest that bentonite fining can have a lower impact on the aroma quality when used before fermentation, the direct adsorption of the aroma molecules is responsible for the aroma losses after fining [16]. A recent work on two Portuguese white monovarietal wines also reported that the volatile organic compound (VOC) profile is highly impacted by using or not using bentonite fining, an observation that is variety-dependent [17].  
Dicarboxymethyl cellulose (DCMC) is a recently described cellulose-derived polymer [18], which is negatively charged at the wine pH and presents the capacity to adsorb positively charged substances [19] and wine proteins [20]. It was therefore of interest to apply DCMC to wines, especially to those prepared from cultivars that are generally known to produce high protein instability wines. The aim of this work was to compare the efficacy of DCMC with that of bentonite in decreasing the hazing potential of white wines and impact on the overall aroma. For this purpose, the presence of proteins in wines, together with other physico-chemical proprieties were recorded, before and after each treatment, in relation to their aroma profiles.