## 1 Introduction  
Climate change has influenced the winemaking industry from viticultural practices to fermentation processes. Indeed, grapes have been characterized by an increase in sugar content that has led to an increase in wine's ethanol content. In the last two decades, there has been a generalized increase of 2% (\(v/v\)) of ethanol in wines over the world [1, 2]. The high ethanol content in wine can impact wine quality by increasing the perception of heat, body, viscosity, and, to a lesser extent, sweetness and acidity, and it is also related to the health aspect [1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7]. In this context, the wine sector has been trying to develop processes that produce wines with lower alcohol content without compromising their quality [8, 9]. Most recently, the EU introduced the categories of \"dealcoholized wine\", including wines with \"actual alcoholic strength no more than 0.5% \(v/v\) ethanol\", and \"partially dealcoholized wine\", where \"actual alcoholic strength above 0.5% \(v/v\) ethanol is below the minimum actual alcoholic strength of the wine category\" [6]. Several approaches could be used to reduce the ethanol content in wine, such as vineyard management and winemaking practices including microbiological, physical, and biochemical approaches [10, 11, 12, 13, 14]. Amongthe biological approaches, in addition to the use of genetically modified _Saccharomyces cerevisiae_ strains, the use of non-_Saccharomyces_ strains has been proposed [15; 16; 17]. Several non-_Saccharomyces_ yeast species used in combination with _S. cerevisiae_ under different fermentation conditions have formed wines with reduced ethanol concentrations [15; 18; 19; 20; 21; 22; 23].  
Several non-_Saccharomyces_ yeast species are characterized by respiro-fermentative regulatory mechanisms (Crabtree negative effect) that allow the respiration in high sugar content substrates to be carried out differently from _S. cerevisiae_, a feature that could be used to reduce ethanol content in wine [19; 23; 24; 25; 26]. In some non-_Saccharomyces_ yeast species/strains, the diversion of alcoholic fermentation with an abundant formation of secondary compounds may partly explain the low ethanol yield [21; 27]. Both these behaviors may contribute to achieving ethanol reduction [28]. Several non-_Saccharomyces_ yeast strains were investigated under aerated or other fermentation conditions with the following ethanol reduction levels: _Metschnikowia pulcherrina_ (0.8-1.6%); _Starmerella bombicola_ (0.6-1.6%); _Toruluspora delbrueckii_ (0.3-1.5%); _Zygosaccharomyces bailii_ (1-2%); _Starmerella bacillus_ (0.3-0.8%); _Schizosaccharomyces pombe_ (0.4-0.65%); _Schizosaccharomyces japonicus_ (1.7-2.4%); _Lachanca thermotolerans_ (0.4-1.2%); _Hansenispora quantiae_ (0.6-1.3%); and _Hansenispora osmophila_ (0.8-1.3%), which can decrease ethanol yields through respiration [29; 30; 31; 32; 33]. Among them, _S. bombicola_ (formerly _Candidia stellata_) showed promising applications in winemaking for its by-products, particularly glycerol [30; 34]. Following the results of previous works [29; 30], here, _S. bombicola_/_S. cerevisiae_ sequential fermentation was evaluated under winery conditions at the pilot scale under aeration (20 mL/L/min for the first three days) for ethanol reduction and the overall improvement of the wine profile. The influence of cellar conditions and the red winemaking process on the use of _S. bombicola_ for ethanol reduction was also evaluated.