Current climatic challenges in the wine sector require innovative solutions to maintain the quality of wines while adapting oenological practices to changing conditions. This article presents the detailed study of a lachancea thermotolerans strain on matrices typical of the French mediterranean area.

AIM: Recent studies on yeast ecology of non-oenological niches have highlighted the ability of some Saccharomyces cerevisiae yeasts to ferment grape must [1]

Recent advances in phenomics and transcriptomics have the enhanced capacity for understanding how clonally propagated perennial crops like grapevines respond to their environments seasonally and over the course of multiple years. Because most grapevines are grafted, above-ground grapevine traits reflect scion genotype and its interaction with the local environment. In addition, traits expressed by the scion reflect rootstock genotype and how that rootstock is interacting with its environment seasonally and across years. To investigate rootstock x environment interaction on shoot systems in grafted grapevines we characterized comprehensive phenotypic variation in an experimental vineyard in Mount Vernon, Missouri, USA where the grapevine cultivar ‘Chambourcin’ is growing on its own roots and is grafted to three different rootstocks (‘1103P’, ‘3309C’, ‘SO4’).

The habit of regular, moderate wine consumption, particularly with meals, is associated with protective effects from coronary heart disease. Epidemiological studies looking at myocardial protection/recovery focus mainly on the effects of red wine due to its high content in antioxidants, especially polyphenols. In several previous studies, conducted in our laboratory, we have concentrated on the effects of moderate consumption of white wine, by experimental animals (rats), gaining a significant experience in technical and procedural challenges. The scientific literature, and our past experience, suggests that rats are resilient towards consumption of full bodied, barrique red wines.

Following anecdotal evidence of unwanted ‘tropical’ character in red wines resulting from vineyard interventions and a subsequent yeast trial observing higher ‘red fruit’ character correlated with higher thiol concentrations, the role of polyfunctional thiols in commercial Australian red wines was investigated.
First, trials into the known tropical thiol modulation technique of foliar applications of sulfur and urea were conducted in parallel on Chardonnay and Shiraz.1 The Chardonnay wines showed expected results with elevated concentrations of 3-sulfanylhexanol (3-SH) and 3-sulfanylhexyl acetate (3-SHA), whereas the Shiraz wines lacked 3-SHA. Furthermore, the Shiraz wines were described as ‘drain’ (known as ‘reductive’ aroma character) during sensory evaluation although they did not contain thiols traditionally associated with ‘reductive’ thiols (H2S, methanethiol etc.).