Effect of one-year cover crop and arbuscular mycorrhiza inocululation in the microbial soil community of a vineyard

Grapevine (Vitis spp.) is a globally significant fruit crop and enhancing its agronomic and oenological traits is crucial to meet changing agricultural conditions and consumer demands.

During the tasting of a fine, old wine, the aromas generated in the glass are intertwined in an intimate, complex manner, expressing the fragrance of the aging bouquet. This aging bouquet, which develops during bottle storage through a complex transformation process, may result in a broad palette of nuances. Among these, undergrowth, truffle, toasted, spicy, licorice, fresh red- and black-berry fruit and mint descriptors were recently identified as features of its olfactory representation for red Bordeaux wines. Although a targeted chemical approach focusing on volatile sulfur compounds revealed the role played by dimethyl sulfide, 2-furanmethanethiol, and 3-sulfanylhexanol as molecular markers of the typicality of the wine aging bouquet of red Bordeaux wines, its chemical transcription has only partially been elucidated.

The aromatic profile of a wine is the result of volatile molecules present in grapes (varietal or primary aromas) and those produced during the winemaking process of fermentation (secondary aromas) and during wine aging (tertiary aromas).

The maintenance and valorization of genetic diversity is an undoubtable resource for the viticulture of the future, since the climate crisis is forcing us to think of new, more resilient varieties. For this reason, the grapevine germplasm of the Fondazione Edmund Mach has been continuously expanded in the last decade to a total of 3,120 accessions, whose trueness-to-type has been verified by means of the universal set of nine microsatellites. About two thirds are V. vinifera subsp. vinifera accessions, while the rest consists of naturalized and selected hybrids, V. vinifera subsp. sylvestris, and pure species. The genetic material has also been characterized over three consecutive years for ampelographic, vine development, and biotic stress response traits to be exploited for experimental purposes.

Climate change results in increasing water stress due to co-effects of rising evapotranspiration (ET) and decreased precipitation over the past 65 years (Spinoni et al. 2019).