Permanent cover cropping with reduced tillage increased resiliency of wine grape vineyards to climate change

In wine producing regions around the world, climate change has the potential to decrease the frequency and amount of precipitation and increase average and extreme temperatures. This will lower soil water availability and increase evaporative demand, thereby increasing the frequency and intensity of water deficit experienced in vineyards. Among other things, grapevines manage water deficit by regulating stomatal closure. The dynamics of this regulation, however, have not been well characterized across the range of Vitis vinifera cultivars. Providing a method to understand how different cultivars regulate their stomata, and hence water use in response to changes in soil water deficits will help growers manage vineyards and select plant material to better meet quality and yield objectives in a changing climate.

4-Ethylphenol (EP) in wine is associated with organoleptic defects such as barn and horse sweat odors. The origin of EP is the bioconversion reaction of p-coumaric acid (CA), naturally present in grapes and grape musts by contaminating yeasts of the genus Brettanomyces bruxellensis.
Yeast cell walls (YCW) have shown adsorption capacities for different compounds. They could be applied to wines in order to adsorb either CA and/or EP and thus reduce the organoleptic defects caused by the contaminating yeasts.

In Burgundy, a climat has nothing to do with the weather but accurately designates a named vine plot, often centuries-old, which produces a singular wine. This wine is the combination of history, the natural environment (relief, type of soil, exposure to the sun), a grape variety and know-how going back thousands of years. The grapes of each climat are harvested separately and the wine is made from a single grape variety and has a unique name featured on the bottle. Romanée conti, clos de vougeot, montrachet, musigny, corton…

Vitis vinifera is one of the most diffused grapevines over the word and it is the raw material for high quality wines production. The availability of more resistant interspecific hybrid vine varieties, developed from crosses between Vitis vinifera and other Vitis species, has generating much interest, also due to the low environmental effect of production. However, hybrid grape wine composition and varietal differences between interspecific hybrids are not well defined. Different studies revealed that wine consumption has health effects due to its high content of antioxidants, as phenolic compounds. In particular, simple phenols are appreciated not only for their physiological health benefits, including antioxidant, anti-inflammatory and cardioprotective effects, but also because they affect wines organoleptic profile and have a significant role in defining their nutritional characteristics.

After some decades sunk into oblivion, pruning has recently recovered the focus of grape growers and viticulturists worldwide. Attention is now being paid to the respect the sap flow continuity and to pruning wounds, as they may affect the general performance and longevity of the plant. The longevity and profitability are strongly affected by the increasing incidence of grapevine wood diseases (GWD), intensified by the omission of good pruning practices and leading to an increasingly aggressive pruning. The purpose of this study is to provide an objective evaluation of the short- and mid-term implications of different pruning practices that differ in the degree of observation several of pruning principles.