Yeast communities and genetic polymorphism of prevalent Saccharomyces cerevisiae strains isolated from the spontaneous fermentation of the sugarcane juice during the production of aguardente in three distilleries in the state of Minas Gerais, Brazil, were studied. S. cerevisiae was the prevalent species during the process of aguardente production, but Schizosaccharomyces pombe was predominant in old fermentations in one distillery. Transient yeast species were found in a variable number, probably due to the daily addition of sugarcane juice, and they were different for each of the three distilleries studied. PFGE and PCR analysis of the predominant strains of S. cerevisiae isolated from the fermented must showed a high degree of genetic polymorphism among the three distilleries. A high molecular variability of S . cerevisae strains was also observed among strains isolated from the same vat at different fermentation ages. Our results showed that there was a succession of geneticly different strains of S. cerevisae during the process of aguardente production.