Caracterización de las tierras de viña de Navarra

Under current climate change pressures, obtaining grapes with adequate acidity at harvest is one of the main challenges for growers, especially if the goal is producing sparkling wines. This issue arises from two main occurrences: i) higher temperatures enhance degradation of malic acid; ii) grape maturity may occur under suboptimal climatic conditions due to an advanced phenology.

Vineyards are strongly exposed to fungal diseases, attacks from insects and competition with weeds. Most treatments used on grape vines contain synthetic active substances, which may be transferred to the wine. Such pesticides have a negative image because many active substances are potential health hazards. A specific oenological treatment allowing the reduction of pesticide residues in wine based on activated vegetable fibres (AVF) is under examination by the International Organisation for Vine and Wine. This technique works efficiently and alters the wine only little (Lempereur et al. 2014).

The concept of ‘terroir’ describes the interplay of the environmental factors that affect the grapevine. This includes but is not limited to climate, soil composition, vineyard management, topography, and geology.

Climate plays a predominant role in vines’ growth and productivity and several environmental variables are already known to pose challenges to grapevine production and the horticultural industry as a whole. In this context, a number of extreme weather events already occurring and expected to occur in the next decades even more frequently and with higher magnitude results from current climate change scenario. The aim of this study was to examine the physiological responses of roots, leaves, and berries of Vitis vinifera cv. Sauvignon blanc to consecutive and combined stressors simulated in a semi-controlled environment.

In this study, we evaluated the contributions of vision, smell and taste to red wine quality judgments by expert wine tasters.