The study of new wine grape cultivars can be interesting to diversify the local wine productions without using international varieties. With this aim some Vitis vinifera intraspecific crosses obtained by Prof. Dalmasso in the 1930s and registered in the Italian National Catalogue in 1977, have been studied in the last years.

From the effect of global climate change, wildfire occurrence during grape ripening has increased. These wildfires produce smoke that can carry organic compounds to a vineyard. These smoke compounds are adsorbed in the grape berry and result in wines with elevated levels of smoke-related phenols. These wines are described as having a smokey, burnt, and dirty aroma (Kristic et al, 2015). Not only are volatile phenols carried by smoke, but additionally glycoconjugate forms of these phenols are present as will. These have been found to have a large impact on the flavor of wines, being the cause of a lasting ashy aftertaste post consumption (Parker et al, 2012). When evaluating the sensory profile of these wines when tasted one after the other, there is an observed problem due to the lasting nature of these undesirable attributes and high level of carry-over from sample to sample. The aim of this work is to evaluate the extent this carryover occurs, along with the best sensory practices to mitigate its influence via different inter-stimulus rinse protocols.

Plants have been shown to redistribute water between root sections and soil layers along a gradient of decreasing water availability. One benefit of this hydraulic redistribution is that water can be transported from roots in wet soil to others in dry soil, delaying the onset of water stress and increasing root longevity in dry environments. Grapevines are thought to redistribute water laterally across the trunk from wet to dry portions of the root system. However, it is unknown whether the phloem contributes to such water redistribution.

In wine grape production, canopy management practices are applied to control the source-sink balance and improve the cluster microclimate to enhance berry composition. The aim of this study was to identify the optimal ranges of berry solar radiation exposure (exposure) for upregulation of flavonoid biosynthesis and thresholds for their degradation, to evaluate how canopy management practices such as leaf removal, shoot thinning, and a combination of both affect the grapevine (Vitis vinifera L. cv. Cabernet Sauvignon) yield components, berry composition, and flavonoid profile under context of climate change. First experiment assessed changes in the grape flavonoid content driven by four degrees of exposure. In the second experiment, individual grape berries subjected to different exposures were collected from two cultivars (Cabernet Sauvignon and Petit Verdot). The third experiment consisted of an experiment with three canopy management treatments (i) LR (removal of 5 to 6 basal leaves), (ii) ST (thinned to 24 shoots per vine), and (iii) LRST (a combination of LR and ST) and an untreated control (UNT). Berry composition, flavonoid content and profiles, and 3-isobutyl 2-methoxypyrazine were monitored during berry ripening. Although increasing canopy porosity through canopy management practices can be helpful for other purposes, this may not be the case of flavonoid compounds when a certain proportion of kaempferol was achieved. Our results revealed different sensitivities to degradation within the flavonoid groups, flavonols being the only monitored group that was upregulated by solar radiation. Within different canopy management practices, the main effects were due to the ST. Under environmental conditions given in this trial, ST and LRST hastened fruit maturity; however, a clear improvement of the flavonoid compounds (i.e., greater anthocyanin) was not observed at harvest. Methoxypyrazine berry content decreased with canopy management practices studied. Although some berry traits were improved (i.e. 2.5° Brix increase in berry total soluble solids) due to canopy management practices (ST), this resulted in a four-fold increase in labor operations cost, two-fold decrease in yield with a 10-fold increase in anthocyanin production cost per hectare that should be assessed together as the climate continues to get hot.

The dynamic sequence of physiological events along the three-months of berry development from anthesis to ripe stage has been thoroughly investigated. Most studies were performed on average samples, taking care to crush enough fruits to fairly represent the overall trend of the future harvest. However, phenological stages like 30% caps off (EL25) highlights the asynchronous nature of this population. Consequently, softening, onset of sugar accumulation and coloration were melted by asynchrony in a developmental mumbo jumbo, until their respective timing could be clarified by single berries approaches.