Extreme canopy management for vineyard adaptation to climate change: is it a good idea?

The increasingly frequent heat waves during grape ripening pose challenges for premium wine grape production. This makes the development of irrigation and canopy management techniques of great importance to maximize yield and grape quality. A field experiment was carried out during 2021 and 2022 using Manto negro wine grapes to study the effect of two irrigation strategies and different light exposure levels on grape quality.

Plants in their natural environment are in continuous interaction with large numbers of potentially pathogenic and beneficial microorganisms. Depending on the microbe, plants have evolved a variety of resistance mechanisms that can be constitutively expressed or induced. Phytoalexins, which are biocidal compounds of low to medium molecular weight synthesized by and accumulated in plants as a response to stress, take part in this intricate defense system.1,2
One of the limitations of our knowledge of phytoalexins is the difficulty of analyzing their spatial responsiveness occurring during plant- pathogen interactions under natural conditions.

The work was aimed at comparing some analytical methods used to characterize oenological tannins and the measure of oxygen consumption rate (OCR), in order to provide oenologists with a rapid method to test the antioxidant capacity of tannin based products and a tool to choose the best suited product for each purpose.

Hydrogen sulfide and methanethiol are recognised as two of the most significant contributors to reductive off-flavours in wine.

‘Mavrodafni’ (Vitis vinifera L.) is considered one of the oldest grapevine cultivars indigenous to the Greek vineyard, with western Peloponnese being its primary center of cultivation. ‘Renio’ is considered to be either a variant of ‘Mavrodafni’ or an altogether different cultivar. Both ‘Mavrodafni’ and ‘Renio’ can be found in the vineyards of the centers of cultivation, since ‘Renio’ is considered to be more productive compared to ‘Mavrodafni’, and for this reason, it has gradually replaced ‘Mavrodafni’ from cultivation over the course of time. The aim of the present study was to assay the mechanical properties, the polyphenolic content and the antioxidant capacity of skin extracts and must of berries coming from ‘Mavrodafni’ and ‘Renio’, cultivated in the same vineyard as well as in the different regions of cultivation of the PDO Mavrodafni Patras.