Contribution Sparkling wines elaborated following the traditional method undergo a second fermentation in closed bottles of base wines, followed by aging of wines with lees for at least 9 months. Most of the sparkling wines elaborated are white and rosé ones, although the production of red ones is highly increasing. One of the initial problems in red sparkling wine processing is to obtain suitable base wines that should have moderate alcohol content and astringency and adequate color intensity; which is difficult to obtain when grapes must be harvested at low phenolic and industrial maturity stage. The low phenolic maturity degree in the red grapes makes essential to choose an adequate winemaking methodology to obtain the base wines because the extracted polyphenols will vary according the winemaking technique: carbonic maceration or destemmed-crushed grapes.

“Terroir” has been acknowledged as an important factor in wine quality
and style. It can be defined as an interaction between climate, soil, vine (cultivar, rootstock) and human
factors such as viticultural and enological techniques. Soil and climate are the two components of the “Terroir” with an important role on the vine development and berries ripening. The present study is focused on the effects of the weather conditions and the soil characteristics on the phenological and berries ripening dynamics of the “Touriga Nacional” in Dão region.

Wine quality is defined by sensory and physico-chemical characteristics. In particular, sensory features are very important since they strongly condition wine acceptability by consumers. However, the evaluation of sensory quality can be subjective, unless performed by a tasting panel of experienced tasters. Therefore, it is of great relevance to establish relationships between objective chemical parameters and sensory perceptions, even though the complexity of wine composition makes it difficult. In this sense, more reliable relationships can be found for a particular wine typology or variety. The present study aimed to predict the perceived sensory quality from the physico-chemical parameters of ‘Barbera d’Asti’ DOCG red wines (Italy).

Bud fruitfulness is a key determinant of the potential and the actual yield. The formation of the grapevine yield spans over a period of two consecutive growing seasons (Ferrara & Mazzeo, 2023).

Wine grapes have the ability to accumulate high amounts of hexoses (glucose and fructose), which is considered one of the main processes occurring during the ripening stage. Sugar accumulation dynamics respond to genetic, environmental and vineyard management factors, with a changing climate leading to advanced and faster sugar accumulation worldwide. Research on mitigation techniques to this phenomenon is ongoing, with the largest focus being vineyard techniques to delay sugar accumulation. Breeding represents another powerful tool to address the issue of high sugar concentration at harvest, since historical trends of selecting best sugar-accumulators may be inverted to breed varieties that accumulate diminished concentrations of hexoses while maintaining optimal acidity, color, mouthfeel and aroma compounds.