The importance of the physicochemical composition of wine on the score awarded in an official contest

Background: Aroma compounds are important secondary metabolite in grapes and play important roles in the flavor and quality of grape berries and their wines. Vitis amurensis grape belongs to the East Asian Vitis spp., with excellent cold and disease resistance, and exhibits strong brewing potential. However, it has not been effectively utilized and there is no systematic research on the aroma compounds of V. amurensis grapes.
Methods: To provide sufficient experimental evidence for the characteristic aroma of V. amurensis grape, HS-SPME-GC/MS was used to identify the aroma compounds of five V. amurensis (‘Beiguohong’, ‘Beiguolan’, ‘Shuangfeng’, ‘Shuanghong’, ‘Shuangyou’) and three interspecific hybrids (‘Beibinghong’, ‘Xuelanhong’, ‘Zuoyouhong’) grapes in Zuojia and Ji’an. The grape berries were collected at harvest in 2020, 2021 and 2022.

In recent years, vineyards in Australia, the US, Canada, Chile, South Africa and Europe have been exposed to smoke from wildfires. Wines made from smoke-affected grapes often exhibit unpleasant smoky, ashy characters, attributed to the presence of smoke-derived volatile compounds, including volatile phenols (which occur in free and glycosylated forms). Various strategies for remediation of smoke tainted wine have been evaluated. The most effective strategies involve the removal of smoke taint compounds via the addition of adsorbent materials such as activated carbon, which can either be added directly or used in combination with nanofiltration. However, these treatments often simultaneously remove wine constituents responsible for desirable aroma, flavour and colour attributes.

Traditional viticulture areas have experienced in the last decades an intensification of field practices, linked to an increased use of fertilisers and phytosanitary products, and to a more intensive mechanization and uniformization of the landscape. This change in management has sometimes led to higher rates of soil erosion andloss of soil structure, fertility decline, groundwater contamination, and to an increased pressure of pests and diseases. Additionally, intensification usually leads to a simplification of landscapes, of particular concern in prestigious wine grape regions where the economical revenue encourages the conversion of land use from natural habitats to high value wine grape production. To revert this trend, it is necessary that growers implement actions that promote biodiversity in their vineyards. The aim of this study is to assess the impact of the implementation of cover crops, vegetational corridors, dry stone walls and vineyard biodiversity hotspots estimated through the study of arthropods. The work has been carried out in four vineyards in Rioja Alavesa belonging to Ostatu winery, where these infrastructures were implemented in 2020. The presence and diversity of arthropods was studied by capturing them at different times in the season and at different distances from the infrastructure using pit-fall traps in the soil and yellow, white and blue chromatic traps at the canopy level. This is a preliminary study in which all adult insects were sorted to the taxonomic level of order and Coleoptera were classified to morphospecies. The results obtained show that there is a relationship between the basic characteristics of the vineyard and the arthropods captured, with a positive effect, although also dependent on the vineyard, of the presence of infrastructure.

The quality of a wine is largely related to the balance between its sourness, bitterness and sweetness. Recently, molecules coming from grapes have been showed to notably contribute to sweet taste of dry wines. To study the viticultural and oenological parameters likely to affect their concentration, their quantification appears of high interest and subsequently requires powerful analytical techniques. Therefore, a new method using liquid chromatography coupled to high resolution mass spectrometry (LC-HRMS) was developed and validated to quantify epi-DPA-3′-O-β-glucopyranoside acid (epi-DPA-G) and astilbin, sweet molecules identified in wine. Three gradients were tested on five different C18 columns (Hypersil Gold, HSS T3, BEH, Syncronis and Kinetex).

Cognac spirit aromas result from the presence of a wide variety of volatile odorous compounds associated with the modalities of distilled spirit elaboration and during aging. Indeed, these odorous compounds play an essential role in the finesse and complexity of the aged Cognac.