Quelles cibles moléculaires pourraient expliquer l’effet du terroir sur la composition des baies en sucres et acides?

La Région Piemonte a commencé en 1994 un projet de caractérisation des productions vitivinicoles des terroirs du Barolo (Piemonte, Italie) par une équipe pluridisciplinaire avec la participation de 6 Instituts de recherche qui travaillent dans la Région et la collaboration de 2 Associations des producteurs viticoles et des organismes de valorisation du vin Barolo.

The wine industry is currently shifting toward more sustainable production systems. There are many reasons for this as the interest of people over climate change and, consequently the wine consumer’s choice toward organic and biodynamic, reduced carbon-footprint, vegan and other environmentally friendly wines. While the viticultural effects of biodynamic and organic practices on wine grapes have been investigated, there is a lack in literature on the general effect on the final quality of wine

The study aims to address the issue of resilience to climate change in viticulture through the adoption of the expert knowledge elicitation (EKE) approach.

The OIV[i] defines terroir as a concept referring to an area in which collective knowledge of the interactions between the physical and biological environment (soil, topography, climate, landscape characteristics and biodiversity features) and vitivinicultural practices develops, providing distinctive wine characteristics. Those are perceptible in the taste of wine, which drives consumer preference and, therefore, wine’s value in the marketplace. Geographical indications (GI) are recognized regulatory constructs formalizing and protecting the nexus between wine taste and the terroir generating it. Despite considering updates, GIs do not consider the nexus as a dynamic one and do not anticipate change, namely of climate. Being climate a fundamental feature of terroir, it strongly impacts wine characteristics, such as taste. According to IPCC[ii], many widespread, rapid and unprecedented changes of climate occurred, some being irreversible over hundreds to thousands of years. Climatic shifts and atmospheric-driven extreme events have been widely reported worldwide. Recent climatic trends are projected to strengthen in upcoming decades, whereas extremes are expected to increase in frequency and intensity, forcing wines away from GI definitions. Geographical shifts of viticultural suitability are projected, often moving into regions and countries different from current ones. Some authors propose adaptation in viticulture, winemaking and product innovation. We show evidence of climate changing wine characteristics in the Douro valley, home of 270-year-old Port GI. We discuss herein resist or adapt stances for when climate changes the nexus between terroir and wine characteristics. Using the MED-GOLD[iii] dashboard, a tool allowing for easy visual navigation of past and future climates, we demonstrate how policymakers can identify future moments, throughout the 21st century under different emission scenarios, when GI specifications will likely need updates (e.g., boundaries, varieties) to reduce climate-change impacts.

Epidermal Patterning Factors are a class of cysteine rich peptides known to be involved in many developmental processes. The role of EPF1, EPF2 and EPFL9 in controlling leaf stomata formation has been well described in model plants and cereals, and recently also in grapevine, while little is known about their activity in other organs. The aim of our study is to investigate whether VviEPFL9-2 can have a specific biological function in grapevine roots, where it resulted to be expressed. As grapevine is cultivated in the form of a grafted plant, we focused our study on the commonly used rootstock Kober 5BB (Vitis berlandieri x Vitis riparia). VviEPFL9-2 was edited in Kober 5BB plants using Agrobacterium tumefaciens transformation of embryogenic calli and the CRISPR/Cas9 technology. The phenotypic evaluation in greenhouse indicated that, as expected, the leaves of knock-out (KO) plants have a significant lower stomatal density compared to WT, associated with a lower stomatal conductance.