We show that a simple model with a maintenance term can satisfactorily reproduce the simulations of several existing models of wine fermentation from the literature, as well as experimental data. The maintenance describes a consumption of the nitrogen that is not entirely converted into biomass. We show also that considering a maintenance term in the model is equivalent to writing a model with a variable yield that can be estimated from data.
Keywords: maintenance; mathematical modeling; nitrogen; population model; variable yield; wine fermentation.