Terroir 1996 banner
IVES 9 IVES Conference Series 9 La caracterización de los moscateles

La caracterización de los moscateles

Abstract

Ya en 1964 GIOVANNI DALMASSO et alii describiendo el Moscato bianco (12) ponían de manifiesto la dificultad realmente ardua en descubrir “si no todas, por lo menos las más importantes variedades que llevan el nombre de Moscateles …. En efecto, estas son tan numerosas que desde los primeros intentos de taxonomía ampelográfica se vió la necesidad de crear un lugar para uno o más grupos de variedades con sabor de moscatel, o, con mayor precisión, con tal aroma”.
Ciertamente el problema existía ya hace muchos años, porque estas variedades con aroma de “moscatel” se conocían desde la antiguedad y por su sabor habían llamado la atención de los cultivadores y de los estudiosos.
Los viñedos que Varrone, Plinio, Columella recuerdan con el nombre de “Apiane”, por la dulzura del fruto buscado por las abejas (abeja = apis en latín), según la opinión común, debían de ser aquellas variedades que más tarde serán llamadas Moscateles. Ya PORTA (28) en “Villae libri XII” editado en Nápoles en el 1584, recuerda, con reminiscencias sobre todo clásicas, muchas variedades con raices antiguas y se vuelve a referir a esta asociación, además de a aquella (menos conocida) del Moscatellone con la Mocatula de los Geoponicos. Pero luego, además, confirma esta presunta derivación la “Naturalis historia” editada en Roterdam en el 1668 y, más adelante, GALLESIO y el “prudentísimo” MOLON (27) que dice — ” Está ya fuera de dudas que las “Apiane” de los antiguos Georgicos correspondían a nuestros Moscateles”- y así hasta Dalmasso (12).
Pero ¿qué eran estas “Apiane”? COLUMELLA (8) distinguía tres tipos pero — decía- “la más fuerte es una, la que tiene las hojas desnudas”. Efectivamente las otras dos … “revestidas de vellosidad, aunque sean iguales por el aspecto de las hojas y de los sarmientos, se diferencian sin embargo por la calidad del vino …”. Eran variedades muy buscadas por el sabor del vino y ya muy famosas (“atque hae pretiosi gustus celeberrime”).
Además del “celeberrime” queremos subrayar aquí el “se diferencian” porque es un indicio ya de clasificación y caracterización.
Desde entonces tenemos que saltar hasta la Edad Media, periodo en el que “Moscati” y “Moscatelli” reaparecen, porque servidos en las mesas de los príncipes y reyes, pero sobre todo porque PIER DE CRESCENZI (13) en su “Trattato” recuerda además de Schiave, Albana, Tribiana, etc., también las uvas de Muscatel. Evidentemente estos vinos eran tan famosos que PAGANINO BONAFE’ (6), en el 1300, sugería el modo de convertir en Moscateles los vinos que no lo eran, añadiendo durante la fermentación “una grancada di fiori de sambuco sechi a l’umbra” (un puñado de flores de saúco secadas a la sombra).
Los escritos y los cultivos de los Moscateles fueron desde entonces numerosísimos y remitimos a un óptimo trabajo de I. EYNARD et alii del 1981 (22) para tener un cuadro realmente completo sobre este tema.
Nos parece oportuno ahora señalar que el sabor de moscatel sirvió a menudo también para la clasificación de las uvas. Es clásica, por ejemplo, la de las Viti Vinifere de ACERBI (1) que para las dos clases: Uvas tintas y Uvas blancas establece dos subclases: con sabor a moscatel y con sabor simple.
Pero es sobre todo en el 1868 MENDOLA (26) quién, precisamente para clasificar el grupo de los Moscateles, propone los tres siguientes subgrupos en función de las características del aroma.

DOI:

Publication date: February 24, 2022

Issue: Terroir 2000 

Type: Article

Authors

A. Calò, A. Costacurta., R. Flamini and N. Milani

Istituto Sperimentale per la Viticultura
Viale XXVIII Aprile, 26 — 31015 Conegliano (Treviso) Italia

Tags

IVES Conference Series | Terroir 2000

Citation

Related articles…

Climate change impacts: a multi-stress issue

With the aim of producing premium wines, it is admitted that moderate environmental stresses may contribute to the accumulation of compounds of interest in grapes. However the ongoing climate change, with the appearance of more limiting conditions of production is a major concern for the wine industry economic. Will it be possible to maintain the vineyards in place, to preserve the current grape varieties and how should we anticipate the adaptation measures to ensure the sustainability of vineyards? In this context, the question of the responses and adaptation of grapevine to abiotic stresses becomes a major scientific issue to tackle. An abiotic stress can be defined as the effect of a specific factor of the physico-chemical environment of the plants (temperature, availability of water and minerals, light, etc.) which reduces growth, and for a crop such as the vine, the yield, the composition of the fruits and the sustainability of the plants. Water stress is in many minds, but a systemic vision is essential for at least two reasons. The first reason is that in natural environments, a single factor is rarely limiting, and plants have to deal with a combination of constraints, as for example heat and drought, both in time and at a given time. The second reason is that plants, including grapevine, have central mechanisms of stress responses, as redox regulatory pathways, that play an important role in adaptation and survival. Here we will review the most recent studies dealing with this issue to provide a better understanding of the grapevine responses to a combination of environmental constraints and of the underlying regulatory pathways, which may be very helpful to design more adapted solutions to cope with climate change.

1H-NMR-based Metabolomics to assess the impact of soil type on the chemical composition of Mediterranean red wines

The aim of this study was to evaluate the effects of different soil types on the chemical composition of Mediterranean red wines, through untargeted and targeted 1H-NMR metabolomics. One milliliter of raw wine was analyzed by means of a Bruker Avance II 400 spectrometer operating at 400.15 MHz. The spectra were recorded by applying the NOESYGPPS1D pulse sequency, to achieve water and ethanol signals suppression. No modification of the pH was performed to avoid any chemical alteration of the matrix. The generation of input variables for untargeted analysis was done via bucketing the spectra. The resulting dataset was preprocessed prior to perform unsupervised PCA, by means of MetaboAnalyst web-based tool suite. The identification of compounds for the targeted analysis was performed by comparison to pure compounds spectra by means of SMA plug-in of MNova 14.2.3 software. The dataset containing the concentrations (%) of identified compounds was subjected to one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) to highlight significant differences among the wines. The untargeted analysis, carried out through the PCA, revealed a clear differentiation among the wines. The fragments of the spectra contributing mostly to the separation were attributed to flavonoids, aroma compounds and amino acids. The targeted analysis leaded to the identification of 68 compounds, whose concentrations were significant different among the wines. The results were related to soils physical-chemical analysis and showed that: 1) high concentrations of flavan-3-ols and flavonols are correlated with high clay content in soils; 2) high concentrations of anthocyanins, amino acids, and aroma compounds are correlated with neutral and moderately alkaline soil pH; 3) low concentrations of flavonoids and aroma compounds are correlated with high soil organic matter content and acidic pH. The 1H-NMR metabolomic analysis proved to be an excellent tool to discriminate between wines originating from grapes grown on different soil types and revealed that soils in the Mediterranean area exert a strong impact on the chemical composition of the wines.

Exploring resilience and competitiveness of wine estates in Languedoc-Roussillon in the recent past: a multi-level perspective

The Languedoc-Roussillon wineries are facing a decline in wine yields particularly PGI yields due to many factors. Climate change is just ones, but is expected to increase in the future. There is also structurally a large heterogeneity of yield profiles among terroirs, varieties and strategies. This work investigates the link between yield, competitiveness and resilience to explore how resilient winegrowers have been in the recent past. To this end two approaches have been combined; (i) an accountancy database analysis at estate scale and (ii) municipality level competitiveness analysis. A new resilience indicator that characterizes the capacity of an estate to absorb yield variation is also defined. The FADN database between 2000 and 2018 of ex-Languedoc-Roussillon (France) and other data are used to analyse the current situation and the past evolution of competitiveness and resilience by type of estate (type of farm: PGI and/or PDO & type of commercialization: bulk and/or bottles). The net margin, which defines competitiveness, is not correlated to yield for all types but depends on the type of commercialization and the level of specialisation. The resilience indicator shows that the net margin of estates specialized in PGI is particularly sensitive to yield declines. We also show that price evolutions seem to compensate the effect of yield losses for the majority of types. Municipality scale analysis shows the links between local pedoclimate, yield, commercialization strategies and price. Overlapping a PDO with a PGI does not always increase a municipality’s PGI competitiveness. It is difficult to make links between causes and effects due to the complexity of the wine production system. Production diversification may be a solution. Resorting to the two level of analysis helps resolving the data gap that is necessary to explore the links between yield and economic performance of the wine estates in the long term.

Grape must quality and mesoclimatic variability in Fruška Gora wine-growing region, Serbia

The Fruška Gora mountain is a traditional wine-growing region in Serbia situated in the Pannonian Basin. Due to such a position, the vicinity of the Danube River and the presence of concave configuration, it is suitable for grape production. This paper provides analyses of spatial variations in meteorological parameters and grape juice quality within Fruška Gora wine region over three consecutive vintages (2018-2020). The examined period can be defined as warm with cool nights during September (AVG 18,9°C; GDD 1918°C; CI 12°CF) and with the presence of mesoclimatic variability. The East part of the study area was somewhat drier and hotter compared to other parts of the region. The analyses of grape must samples (190 in total) of five cultivars (Cabernet-Sauvignon, Merlot, Chardonnay, Sauvignon blanc and Grašac (Welschriesling)) commonly grown across the region (19 sites), were performed using Fourier Transform Infrared Technology (FTIR). Among all cultivars, Sauvignon blanc was harvested first in the East area (DOY=246±5, GDD at harvest=1552±74, 22.2±0.7 °Brix), while the latest harvest was recorded for Cabernet-Sauvignon in the West (DOY=283±5, GDD at harvest=1936±187, 23.4±1.0 °Brix ). Both the red and white cultivars had higher acidity and YAN in the grape must if the vines were grown in the North and East compared to South and West areas. According to PCA analysis, Grašac showed the lowest variation in grape must chemical composition. Thus, the results confirm that Grašac is the most stable cultivar in Fruška Gora. All monitored cultivars reached technological fruit ripeness by the end of the growing season. However, it was difficult to reach full ripeness of red cultivars, mostly beacuse of uncoupling of technolocical and phenolic ripeness. Thus, Cabernet-Sauvignon had higher variations in GDD sums at harvest compared to other cultivars, which probably increased variations in grape must quality.

The concept of terroir: what place for microbiota?

Microbes play key roles on crop nutrient availability via biogeochemical cycles, rhizosphere interactions with roots as well as on plant growth and health. Recent advances in technologies, such as High Throughput Sequencing Techniques, allowed to gain deeper insight on the structure of bacterial and fungal communities associated with soil, rhizosphere and plant phyllosphere. Over the past 10 years, numerous scientific studies have been carried out on the microbial component of the vineyard. Whether the soil or grape compartments have been taken into account, many studies agree on the evidence of regional delineations of microbial communities, that may contribute to regional wine characteristics and typicity. Some authors proposed the term “microbial terroir” including “yeast terroir” for grapes to describe the connection between microbial biogeography and regional wine characteristics. Many factors are involved in terroir including climate, soil, cultivar and human practices as well as their interactions. Studies considering “microbial terroir” greatly contributed to improve our knowledge on factors that shape the vineyard microbial structure and diversity. However, the potential impact of “microbial terroir” on wine composition has yet not received strong scientific evidence and many questions remain to be addressed, related to the functional characterization of the microbial community and its impact on plant physiology and grape composition, the origins and interannual stability of vineyard microbiota, as well as their impact on wine sensorial attributes. The presentation will give an overview on the role of microbiota as a terroir component and will highlight future perspectives and challenges on this key subject for the wine industry.