Effects of soil and climate on wine style in Stellenbosch: Sauvignon blanc

In 2020, 12% of all bottled German wines were aromatized, which may increase further due to rising popularity of dealcoholized wines. As sealing polymers of a bottling line absorb aroma compounds and may release them into regular wines in the next filling¹, this unintentional carry-over bears the risk to violate the legal ban of any aromatization of regular wine. However, following EU legislation, German food control authorities accept a technical unavoidable transfer of aroma compounds, if this is of no sensory significance.

Grapevines are grown grafted in most viticultural regions. Grapevine rootstocks are either hybrids or pure species of different American Vitis spp. (particularly V. berlandieri, V. rupestris and V. riparia), which were primarily used to provide root resistance to the insect pest Phylloxera. In addition to Phylloxera resistance, grapevine rootstocks were also selected in relation their resistance to various abiotic stress conditions. Future rootstocks should have the potential to adapt viticulture to climate change without changing the characteristics of the harvested product. However, high grafting success rates are an essential prerequisite to be able to use them with all the varieties. The objective of this work is to develop quantitative techniques to characterize graft union formation in grapevine.

The pre-fermentative steps play a relevant role for the characteristics of white wine [1]. In particular, the grape pressing can affect the chemical composition and sensory profile and its optimized management leads to the desired extraction of aromas and their precursors, and phenols resulting in a balanced wine [2-4]. These aspects are important especially for must addressed to the sparkling wine as appropriate extraction of phenols is expected being dependent to grape composition, as well.

Grapevine is a crop of great economic importance for several countries. The intensification of grapevine production has mostly been sustained by the increasing use of water resources at the expense of the environmental water balance. Moreover, in the last decades, climate change and the consequent expansion of drought have further compromised water availability, making current agricultural systems even more fragile both ecologically and economically. Recently, many research groups have highlighted the important role of endophytes in facilitating plant growth under optimal or stressful conditions. Within the framework of the PRIMA project, we aim to investigate the possible exploitation of the natural endophyte biodiversity as a sustainable tool to make grapevine plants more resilient to water deficit environmental conditions.

I territori della Riserva Geologica del Piacenziano sono parte del pedeappennino piacentino e sono noti per essere la culla del Pliocene, quel periodo di storia della Terra compreso tra 5.3 e 1.8 milioni di anni fa. Gli strati argillosi e sabbiosi riccamente fossiliferi qui presenti sono da sempre oggetto di studi geo-paleontologici tant’è che il Pliocene medio (3.6-2.6 milioni di anni fa) è internazionalmente noto come Piacenziano. Le analisi sensoriali strutturate dei vini qui prodotti hanno evidenziato, soprattutto per il vino Monterosso, le positive peculiarità dei loro caratteri sensoriali e descritto gli scostamenti significativi del loro profilo sensoriale rispetto agli altri vini presi a riferimento.