Clone performance under different environmental conditions in California

Cognac vineyard is mainly dedicated to brandy production. Within the vineyard restructuring context, one part is turned over wine varieties for wine production (about 1,500 ha planted from 1999 to 2005). Today, the new wine producers need technical references about qualitative potential of the « Charentes Terroir », varieties and adapted vineyard management.
In order to answer to this professional request, an observatory of 18 plots of Merlot and 12 plots of Sauvignon have been laid out since 2003 and 2004 on various kinds of pedoclimate.

After fermentations, the crude wine is a turbid medium not accepted by the consumer therefore, it needs to be filtered

In grafted plants, such as grapevine, increasing the diversity of rootstocks available to growers is an ideal strategy to get adaptation to climate change. The rootstocks used for grapevine are hybrids of various American Vitis, including V. berlandieri. The rootstocks currently used in vineyards are derived from breeding programs involving very small numbers of parental individuals.

Weather uncertainty is forcing Mediterranean winegrowers to adopt new irrigation strategies to cope with water scarcity while ensuring a sustainable yield and improved berry and wine quality standards. Therefore, more accurate and high-resolution monitoring of soil water content and vine water status is a major concern. Leaf water potential measured at pre-dawn (PD) is considered to be in equilibrium with soil water potential and is highly correlated with soil water content at the soil depth where roots extract water.

Winemaking is a complex microbial process involving the co-existence and interactions of various microorganisms [1].