Aromatic maturity is a cornerstone of terroir expression in red wine

It is common to find tanks in the winery with wine below their capacity due to wine transfers between tanks of different capacities or the interruption of operations for periods of a few days. This situation implies the existence of an ullage space in the tank with prolonged contact with the wine causing its absorption/oxidation. Oxygen uptake from the air headspace over the wine due to differences in the partial pressure of O2 can be rapid, up to 1.5 mL of O2 per liter of wine in one hour and 100 cm2 of surface area1 and up to saturation after 4 hours.

Wine is one of the most representative components of Mediterranean diet. Moderate wine intake together with food, has been positively correlated with reduced risk of many chronic diseases. This beneficial effect seems to be ascribed to elevated polyphenolic content of wine [1]. Traditional approaches for the identification of wine biomarkers consumption include targeted metabolomics that focuses on the quantification of well-defined metabolites, losing a valuable information about a massive number of compounds. On the other hand, untargeted metabolomics can disclose a large quantity of signals corresponding to potential biomarkers in a single analysis with high sensitivity and resolution.

Aromas are one of the key points in food analysis since they are related to character, quality and consequently consumer acceptance. It is not different in the winery industry, where the aromatic profile is a combination of viticultural and oenological practices. Based on the development of more aromatic clones and on the potential to produce sparkling wines at Caldas, in the southern region of Minas Gerais (Brazil) (21°55´S and 46°23´W, altitude 1,100m), the aim of this work was the determination of volatile compounds in six different clones of Chardonnay grape berries to better understand which compounds add bouquet to the wine, and additionally comprehend the impacts of the edaphoclimatic and annual conditions on the improvement of grape-growing and winemaking practices.

In Franconia, the northern part of Bavaria in Germany, climate change, visible in earlier bud break, advanced flowering and earlier grape maturity, leads to a decrease of traditionally cultivated early ripening aromatic white wine varieties as Mueller-Thurgau (30 % of the wine growing area) and Bacchus (12 %). With the predicted rise of temperature in all European wine regions the conditions for white wine grape varieties will decline and the grapes themselves will lose a part of their aromatic and fruity expression. Variety change towards the cultivation of later ripening white wine varieties is a very expensive and long-term process, and must be accompanied by special marketing efforts.

Xinomavro is a red grape variety from Northern Greece (Protected Designation of Origin), known for the nice acidities, perfectly appropriate for sparkling wine production (Rosé and Blanc de Noir). The elabo- ration of sparkling wine requires technical as well as scientific skills. Although the impact of the yeast strains and their metabolites on the final product quality is well documented, the action of bacteria still remains unknown.
The present work focuses (i) on the population diversity of lactic acid bacteria isolated from sparkling wines and (ii) on the technological effect of the species during sparkling wine elaboration.