Port wine region settling

The positive contribution of toasted vine-shoots (SEGs, Shoot from vines – Enological – Granule) used in winemaking to the chemical and sensory profile of wines has been widely proven. However, the combination of this new enological tool with other winemaking technologies, such as micro-oxygenation (MOX), has not been studied so far. It is known that micro-oxygenation is used in wineries to stabilizes color, improves structure or combining with oak alternatives products to achieve a more effective aroma integration of wines. For that, its implementation in combination with SEGs could result in differentiated wines.

A soil management and vine irrigation trial was carried out for 4 consecutive years from 2020 to 2023 at agroscope’s experimental vineyard in leytron (Valais, Switzerland) with the Chasselas grape variety (clone 14-33/4, grafted on 5bb). Two types of soil maintenance (bare soil with chemical weeding and sown grass) coupled with two water regimes (with and without drip irrigation from flowering to veraison) were compared in a randomized design with four replicates of 10 vines each.

Climate change presents a challenge for agriculture worldwide. Yet, crop productivity is negatively impacted by abiotic hazards such as high temperatures and water deficit.

The Muscadet area is situated in the southeast of Nantes, close to the Atlantic coast. It constitutes the western extension
of the French vineyard “Loire Valley”. The Muscadet is renowned and often spontaneously linked to a white wine.
However it remains misconceived as an ordinary wine, lacking authenticity.

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) are increasingly used to monitor canopy structure and vineyard performance. Compared with traditional remote sensing platforms (e.g. aircraft and satellite), UAVs offer a higher operational flexibility and can acquire ultra-high resolution images in formats such as true color red, green and blue (RGB) and multispectral. Using photogrammetry, 3D vineyard models and normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) maps can be created from UAV images and used to study the structure and health of grapevine canopies. However, there is a lack of comparison between UAV-based images and ground-based measurements, such as leaf area index (LAI) and canopy porosity.