Reconocimiento geoedafológico para la zonificación vitivinícola de la D.O. Montilla-Moriles

The Cape of Storms (also known as Cape of Good Hope) is renowned for harbouring a multitude of shipwrecks due to the inherent treacherous coastline and blistering storms.

The professional winegrower usually selects the harvest date considering several elements, such as the vine stem and berry colour, the flavour, appearance and grain elasticity. Nowadays these elements have turned old fashioned.

Microorganisms have been widely used in oenology since prehistoric times. Their metabolism significantly impacts many wine properties and is particularly essential for the production of flavor compounds, thereby affecting perceived wine quality.

Botrytis bunch rot occurrence is the most important limitation for the wine industry in humid environments. The effect of grapevine vegetative growth on bunch rot expression results from direct effects (cluster architecture, nitrogen status among others) and indirect ones (via microclimate). Previous studies of our group showed strong differences in bunch rot incidence between floor management treatments: cover crop (CC) vs weed-free strips under the trellis with herbicide (H). We observed that in some circumstances this reduction in bunch rot incidence occurred without major vine growth differences among treatments. The aim of the present study was to test the general hypothesis that other factors unrelated to grapevine vegetative expression could be more relevant to grapevine susceptibility to bunch rot.

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).