Parcours de découverte des terroirs viticoles

Aims: Agroscope investigated the efficiency of nitrogen fertilization via foliar urea application at veraison with the aim of raising the YAN (yeast assimilable nitrogen) content in the musts. The observations were conducted on the white grapevine cultivar Doral (Chasselas x Chardonnay) in several pedoclimatic conditions of the Leman wine region, Switzerland, in the years 2012 and 2013. Knowing that the YAN in must plays a key role in wine quality, the aim was finding the main parameters affecting the final YAN level in order to better control them.

In recent years, consumer demand for products without chemical additives increased, becoming a priority for the wine sector. SO₂ is widely used for its multiple properties including antiseptics, antioxidants and antioxidasics and the strategy of bioprotection in winemaking represents now an alternative to this chemical additive. In oenology, results have highlighted the interest of bioprotection to limit the development of microorganisms like Hanseniaspora uvarum and thus reduce the doses of sulphite. Indeed, this species is considered because of its acetic acid and methyl butyl acetate production, the latter can cover the varietal character of wines.

L’étude présentée porte sur une commune de l’Entre-Deux-Mers dans le bordelais. Nous caractérisons dans un premier temps les potentialités des sols vis-à-vis de la production de vins rouges de qualité (délimitation de terroirs grâce à la prise en compte des couvertures pédologiques et des caractéristiques morphométriques du terrain : pentes, expositions, convexités. Dans un second temps, nous récapitulons l’évolution historique des occupations des sols depuis 1790 : l’emplacement des vignes est ainsi localisé sur les terroirs respectifs des communes. Enfin, une étude prospective résultant d’enquêtes sur l’utilisation du foncier, situe le devenir prévisible de l’espace étudié (en particulier dans ses composantes viticoles et urbaines).

​For several years, the chemistry of taste has aroused high interest both from academics and industrials. Plant kingdom is a rich and reliable source of new taste-active compounds. Many sweet, bitter or sour molecules have been identified in various plants [1]. They belong to diverse chemical families and their sensory properties are strongly affected by slight structural modifications. As a consequence, the investigation of natural taste-active products in a given matrix appears as a major challenge for chemists. Such studies are particularly relevant in oenology since they allow a better understanding of wine and spirit taste.

Nowadays biodiversity loss is considered as a prior environmental issue. Agricultural landscapes are particularly concerned, mainly through the specialization and intensification of farming activities which lead, at a larger scale, to landscape simplification. Landscape management would be a good means to halt biodiversity loss, but large-scale studies remain rare. The life+ project BioDiVine aims to understand biodiversity dynamics and promote sustainable conservation actions at this scale in viticulture.