Estudio de la fertilidad de los suelos para la zonificación vitícola de la D.O. MONTILLA-MORILES

Many volatile compounds of different chemical/biochemical origin contribute to wine aroma. Certain key ‘varietal’ aroma compounds such as methoxypyrazines are formed in the grape and appear to be only scarcely influenced by fermentation.

The Matrix Assisted Laser Desorption/Ionization–Time-Of-Flight Mass Spectrometry (MALDI-TOF MS) technology is commonly used in food and medical sector to identify yeast or bacteria species isolated from a nutritive culture media. Since a decade, brewery and oenology industries have been attracted to this method which combines fast analysis times, reliability and low cost of analysis. Briefly, this method is based on the comparison of the MALDI-TOF/MS protein spectra of an isolated colony of yeast or bacteria with those contain in a manufacturer’s reference protein spectra database. Initiated in 2015, the creation of the first oenological mass spectra database has proved to be essential for increase quality of species identification.

Increasing temperatures worldwide are expected to cause a change in spatial distribution of plant species along elevational gradients and there are already observable shifts to higher elevations as a consequence of climate change for many species. Not only naturally growing plants, but also agricultural cultivations are subject to the effects of climate change, as the type of cultivation and the economic viability depends largely on the prevailing climatic conditions. A shift to higher elevations therefore represents a viable adaptation strategy to climate change, as higher elevations are characterized by lower temperatures. This is especially important in the case of viticulture because a certain wine-style can only be achieved under very specific climatic conditions. Although there are several studies investigating climatic suitability within winegrowing regions or longitudinal shifts of winegrowing areas, little is known about how fast vineyards move to higher elevations, which may represent a viable strategy for winegrowers to maintain growing conditions and thus wine-style, despite the effects of climate change. We therefore investigated the change in the spatial distribution of vineyards along an elevational gradient over the past 20 years in the mountainous wine-growing region of Alto Adige (Italy). A dataset containing information about location and planting year of more than 26000 vineyard parcels and 30 varieties was used to perform this analysis. Preliminary results suggest that there has been a shift to higher elevations for vineyards in general (from formerly 700m to currently 850 m a.s.l., with extreme sites reaching 1200 m a.s.l.), but also that this development has not been uniform across different varieties and products (i.e. vitis vinifera vs hybrid varieties and still vssparkling wines). This is important for climate change adaptation as well as for rural development. Mountain areas, especially at mid to high elevations, are often characterized by severe land abandonment which can be avoided to some degree if economically viable and sustainable land management strategies are available.

Les préoccupations actuelles autour des paysages viticoles vont au-delà des clichés promotionnels développés par les stratégies marketing. En effet, les paysages sont aujourd’hui au cœur d’une demande sociale croissante qui se traduit par différentes lois (la loi paysage de 1993, le paysage reconnu comme patrimoine commun de la nation par la loi n°95-101, la création du Conseil national du paysage par arrêté du 8/12/2000).

Recent wine-like reconstitution sensory studies confirmed that several monoterpenes were the key aroma compounds in the perception of an ‘apricot’ aroma attribute in Viognier wine.