The aim of this work was to investigate the effect of wine phenolic aldehydes, flavonoids and tannins on growth and viability of strains of Oenococcus oeni and Lactobacillus hilgardii. Cultures were grown in ethanol-containing MRS/TJ medium supplemented with different concentrations of phenolic aldehydes or flavonoids and monitored spectrophotometrically. The effect of tannins was evaluated by monitoring the progressive inactivation of cells in ethanol-containing phosphate buffer supplemented with grape seed extracts with different molecular weight tannins. Of the phenolic aldehydes tested, sinapaldehyde, coniferaldehyde, p-hydroxybenzaldehyde, 3,4-dihydroxybenzaldehyde and 3,4,5-trihydroxybenzaldehyde significantly inhibited the growth of O. oeni VF, while vanillin and syringaldehyde had no effect at the concentrations tested. Lact. hilgardii 5 was only inhibited by sinapaldehyde and coniferaldehyde. Among the flavonoids, quercetin and kaempferol exerted an inhibitory effect especially on O. oeni VF. Myricetin and the flavan-3-ols studied (catechin and epicatechin) did not affect considerably the growth of both strains. Condensed tannins (particularly tetramers and pentamers) were found to strongly affect cell viability, especially in the case of O. oeni VF. In general, this strain was found to be more sensitive than Lact. hilgardii 5 to the phenolic compounds studied. This work contributes to the knowledge of the effect of different phenolic compounds on the activity of wine lactic acid bacteria, which, especially in the case of aldehydes and of different molecular weight fractions of tannins, is very scarce.