Les sols du cru de Bonnezeaux, Thouarcé, Anjou, France

A critical aspect of wine quality from a consumer perspective is the overall impression of wine flavour, which is formed by the interplay of volatile aroma compounds, their precursors, and taste and matrix components. Grapes contribute some potent aroma compounds, together with a large pool of non-volatile precursors (e.g. glycoconjugates and amino acid conjugates). Aroma precursors can break down through chemical hydrolysis reactions, or through the action of yeast or enzymes, significantly changing the aroma profile of a wine during winemaking and storage. In addition, glycoconjugates of monoterpenes, norisoprenoids and volatile phenols, together with sulfur-conjugates in wine, provide a reservoir of additional flavour through the in-mouth release of volatiles which may be perceived retro-nasally.

The ‘Erbaluce‘, a grapevine cultivar from which in the Canavese (Piedmont, Italy) different types of white DOC wines are obtained, is traditionally trained on a support structure commonly known as “pergola” having three to five long “cords” which consist of three cordons and canes interlaced together.

The postharvest dehydration of grapes is a traditional practice to obtain wines with unique traits (e.g., sweet, dry/reinforced).

One of the characteristics of the terroir zoning studies that is more complex to manage is the scale dependence. Thus, terroir zoning studies of the same area at different scales are comparable but not equal. Fractal analysis has demonstrated to be a suitable tool to characterize and model natural elements within a defined range of scales.

Climate is one of the main components that defines the development and behavior of the plant, conditioning the health status and the final quality of the grapes. In temperate coastal climates such as in Uruguay (latitude 35° S, longitude 55° O), precipitations during the growing season present high interannual variability, with a average of 100 mm per month. This variability means that plants must adapt to conditions from one year to the next.