Organic and biodynamic sustainable productions and effect on eligibility and peculiarity of a typical wine

Abstract

The wine industry is currently shifting toward more sustainable production systems. There are many reasons for this as the interest of people over climate change and, consequently the wine consumer’s choice toward organic and biodynamic, reduced carbon-footprint, vegan and other environmentally friendly wines. While the viticultural effects of biodynamic and organic practices on wine grapes have been investigated, there is a lack in literature on the general effect on the final quality of wine.

For this purpose, this study sought to evaluate the impact of the organic, biodynamic and conventional production processes on the eligibility and peculiarity of a typical wine, such as Chianti DOCG: commercial Chianti DOCG wines from 2016 and 2017 harvest were selected based on their production management including organic, biodynamic and, conventional. The global quality of a typical wine was defined by three different profiles: the eligibility profile (chemical characteristics such as alcohol concentration, total acidity, pH, and phenolic concentration), the peculiarity or typicality profile defined by the cultivar (aromatic characteristics that originate from the grapes), and the style profile (characteristics that result from winemaking methods). Chemical and sensory analyses were carried out to define the eligibility and typicality profiles of the wines and to evaluate their correlation with the different production techniques. The statistical elaboration of the chemical and sensory data underlined that generally the different wine production techniques did not yield any systematic differences on the eligibility and typicality profiles, except for the higher values of color intensity and polyphenols contents of the organic wines.