Determinazione della frazione aromatica dei vini, quale strumento per-la valorizzazione del territorio viticolo

The increasing vulnerability of viticulture to climate change necessitates innovative solutions to improve its sustainability and resilience.

Atmospheric and statistical models were used to increase understanding of potential climatic impacts, resulting from mesoscale physical processes that cause significant temperature variability for viticulture within the Stellenbosch Wine of Origin district. Hourly temperature values from 16 automatic weather stations and 40 tinytag data loggers located in the vineyards were analysed.

The use of pectinolytic enzymes in winemaking is state of the art. These enzymes catalyse the degradation of pectic substances through depolymerization (hydrolases and lyases) and de-esterification. As a result, it supports the extraction of juice and facilitates filtration. It has also been shown in winemaking that the presence of pectinolytic enzymes improves the stability, taste, texture, colour and aroma of products. With regard to enzymes currently applied in winemaking, enzymes derived from filamentous fungi dominate the enzyme industry. Fungal-based pectinolytic enzymes specifically require purification from the culture medium to eliminate unwanted side reactions, which is poorly sustainable. Some non-traditional yeast strains have been reported to exhibit pectinolytic activities. Therefore, the direct use of pectinolytic yeast during wine fermentation process can be an attractive and alternative source for the use of enzymes as input.

Nitrogen is an important nutrient of yeast and its low content in grape must is a major cause for sluggish fermentations. To prevent problems during fermentation, a supplementation of the must with ammonium salts or more complex nitrogen mixtures is practiced in the cellar. However this correction seems to improve only partially the quality of wine [1]. In fact, yeast is using nitrogen in many of its metabolic pathways and depending of the sort of the nitrogen source (ammonium or amino acids) it produces different flavor active compounds. A limitation in amino acids can lead to a change in the metabolic pathways of yeast and consequently alter wine quality.

Aim: Climate modelling in viticulture introduced new challenges such as high spatio-temporal monitoring and the use of dependable time series and robustness modelling methods. Land surface temperature (LST) is widely used and particularly MODIS thermal satellite images due to their high temporal resolution (four images per day).