Aptitude du cépage Chenin à l’élaboration de vins liquoreux en relation avec certaines unités terroirs de base de A.O.C. Coteaux du Layon

Grapevine cultivars are vegetatively propagated to maintain their varietal characteristics. This process of multiplication leads to spontaneous somatic mutations that can eventually generate a variant phenotype, of potential interest for cultivar improvement and innovation. However, regardless their phenotypic effect, somatic mutations stack in the genome, and they can be used to reveal the origin and dissemination history of ancient cultivars. Here, a stringent somatic variant calling over whole genome resequencing data from 35 ‘Tempranillo Tinto’ clones or old vines from seven Iberian winemaking regions revealed 135 single nucleotide variations (SNVs) shared by some of the clonal lines.

Climate is considered one of the main factors that determines the aptitude of a specific location for growing grapes and producing high quality wine, being in that sense one of the main elements defining the concept of terroir

L’étude du comportement physiologique et agronomique de la vigne (cv. Chasselas) a été réalisée en 2001 par la Station fédérale de recherches en production végétale de Changins sur divers terroirs viticoles vaudois (Suisse), dans le cadre d’un projet d’étude des terroirs viticoles vaudois en collaboration avec le bureau I LETESSIER (SIGALES) à Grenoble et l’École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL).

Making high quality but affordable Pinot noir (PN) wine is challenging in most terroirs and New Zealand’s (NZ) situation is no exception. To increase the probability of making highly typical PN wines producers choose to grow grapes in cool climates on lower fertility soils while adopting labour intensive practices. Stringent yield targets and higher input costs necessarily mean that PN wine cost is high, and profitability lower, in line-priced varietal wine ranges. To understand the reasons why higher yielding vines are perceived to produce wines of lower quality we have undertaken an extensive study of PN in NZ. Since 2018, we established a network of twelve trial sites in three NZ regions to find individual vines that produced acceptable commercial yields (above 2.5kg per vine) and wines of composition comparable to “Icon” labels. Approximately 20% of 660 grape lots (N = 135) were selected from within a narrow juice Total Soluble Solids (TSS) range and made into single vine wines under controlled conditions. Principal Component Analysis of the vine, berry, juice and wine parameters from three vintages found grape berry mass to be most effective clustering variable. As berry mass category decreased there was a systematic increase in the probability of higher berry red colour and total phenolics with a parallel increase in wine phenolics, changed aroma fraction and decreased juice amino acids. The influence of berry size on wine composition would appear stronger than the individual effects of vintage, region, vineyard or vine yield. Our observations support the hypothesis that it is possible to produce PN wines that fall within an “Icon” benchmark composition range at yields above 2.5kg per vine provided that the Leaf Area:Fruit Weight ratio is above 12cm2 per g, mean berry mass is below 1.2g and juice TSS is above 22°Brix.

This study examines the different strategies adopted by wine exporters located in France for penetrating international alcohol distribution networks in the U.S. market (and to a lesser extent the Canadian market). Grounded in the Business-to-Business (B2B) marketing literature (Ellegaard and Medlin, 2018), this study adopts a framework integrating a ‘Stakeholder’ approach for understanding the logics behind exporters’ strategies to penetrate the alcohol distribution networks (wholesalers, importers, alcohol monopolies).