Clone performance under different environmental conditions in California

Climate change is leading to a rise in average temperature and in the frequency and severity of heatwaves, and is already significantly disturbing grapevine phenology and berry composition. With the evolution of the weather of Australian grape growing regions that are already warm and hot, flavonoids, for which biosynthesis depends on bunch microclimate, are expected to be impacted. These compounds include anthocyanins and tannins which contribute substantially to grape and wine quality. The goals of this project were to determine if berry tannin accumulation is sensitive to high temperature and to enhance knowledge on upper temperature limits for viable wine production, in turn informing critical timing for mitigation strategies.

Considering that „prevention requires information”, in 2007, the european education program wine in moderation (wim) started. The common message of responsible and only moderate wine consumption is implemented in each participating country, adapted to national circumstances. In germany, besides recruiting new wim members from the wine sector, the deutsche weinakademie focusses also on information and education of future wine makers and cellar men in professional schools. The seminars cover basic information about the existing legal framework (youth protecting law, drink driving laws, etc.), the self regulation code of conduct for commercial communications (advertising) of alcoholic beverages as well as the health effects of alcoholic beverages, and of wine in particular.

Following anecdotal evidence of unwanted ‘tropical’ character in red wines resulting from vineyard interventions and a subsequent yeast trial observing higher ‘red fruit’ character correlated with higher thiol concentrations, the role of polyfunctional thiols in commercial Australian red wines was investigated.
First, trials into the known tropical thiol modulation technique of foliar applications of sulfur and urea were conducted in parallel on Chardonnay and Shiraz.1 The Chardonnay wines showed expected results with elevated concentrations of 3-sulfanylhexanol (3-SH) and 3-sulfanylhexyl acetate (3-SHA), whereas the Shiraz wines lacked 3-SHA. Furthermore, the Shiraz wines were described as ‘drain’ (known as ‘reductive’ aroma character) during sensory evaluation although they did not contain thiols traditionally associated with ‘reductive’ thiols (H2S, methanethiol etc.).

The spatial distribution of powdery mildew is often heterogeneous between neighboring plots, with higher disease pressure in certain places

Following the 2008-2009 reform of the European Union’s common market organisation in wine all protected designations of origin and geographical indications were imposed to prepare a product specification that described the conditions of their use. In this paper, we describe this process and the Hungarian system of geographical indications.