Viticulture, landscapes and the marketing of our wine

Fruity notes play a key role in the consumer’s appreciation of Bordeaux red wines. If literature provides a lot of knowledge about the nature of volatile compounds involved in this fruity expression, the sensory phenomena involving these compounds in mixture still need to be explored. Considering previous sensory works about the impact of esters and some overripening compounds, the goal of this work was to study the implication of perceptual interactions involving red wine odorant compounds of diverse origins and described as potentially affecting fruity aromatic expression.

Tempranillo Tinto (TT) is the third-most planted red wine variety in the world, and it is mostly grown in the Iberian Peninsula. Spontaneous somatic variation appearing during vegetative propagation can be exploited to improve elite varieties as Tempranillo Tinto, including the selection of new phenotypes enhancing berry quality. We described previously that a somatic variant of TT with darker fruit color, the clone VN21, exhibits increased extractability of polyphenols during the winemaking process. To unravel the molecular mechanism underlying this phenomenon, we performed whole-genome resequencing to compare VN21 to other TT clones, revealing a 10 Mb deletion in chromosome 11 that likely affected only the L1 meristem cell layer of VN21 and tissues derived from it, such as external cell layers of berry skin.

This paper describes a zoning study performed on a vast territory of around 86,500 hectares, situated in the countryside area of La Mancha Central (Castilla-La Mancha). The aim of the study was to classify the environment according to a small number of ecological criteria, establish the relevant territorial units and generate thematic maps with the different levels of criteria employed and synthetic maps by crossing these criteria.

Bioactive polyphenols from grapes and wines, like stilbenes and flavonols (SaF), are often determined to nutritional evaluation, but also for many other purposes. The objective of this study was to quantify SaF in red wines from “Campanha Gaúcha”, a large and young viticultural region from South Brazil. Moreover, through statistical analysis, evaluate the influence of these compounds according to varieties, production process, harvest years and micro-regions of cultivation. A total of 58 samples of red wines were analyzed by high-performance liquid chromatography coupled to diode array detector (HPLC-DAD) for determination of trans-resveratrol (R), quercetin (Q), myricetin (M), kaempferol (K), trans-e-viniferin (V) and their precursor, cinnamic acid (C).

Context and purpose of the study. Leaf osmotic adjustment (i.e., active accumulation of osmolytes in the cells) has been reported in grapevines in response to drought and as a natural process throughout the growing season (seasonal osmotic adjustment).