New Insights into Wine Color Analysis: A Comparison of Analytical Methods and their Correlation with Sensory Perception

Regenerative agriculture (RA) practices aim to minimize soil disturbance, keep soil covered, maintain living roots underground, and integrate livestock to improve soil health and sustainability.

Alcoholic fermentation conducted by microorganism is a key step in the production of wine. In this process, interactions between different species of yeast are widely described but their mechanisms are still poorly understood. The interactions studied in wine are mainly between Saccharomyces and non-Saccharomyces species. Therefore, little is known about the mechanisms of interactions

With growing consumer interest in products without chemical additives, limiting the use of sulfites is a priority for the wine industry. Bioprotection is a biological alternative that avoids or reduces the risks of alterations that have a negative impact on the organoleptic quality of wines and, ultimately, on their acceptability to consumers. bioprotection can also provide a response to the risks of microbiological deviations, which are increased both by climate change and by the organization of harvesting operations, which increasingly include the use of multi-bins filled at the vine, exposing the harvest to sometimes high temperatures for longer periods of time.

Phenology scales widely adopted by viticulturists (i.e., BBCH or modified E-L systems) are classification tools that describe seasonal and precisely recognized stages of fruit growth and development based on specific descriptors such as visual/physical traits or easy-to-measure compositional parameters.

The application of sensors in viticulture is a fast and efficient method to monitor grapevine vegetative, yield and quality parameters and determine their spatial intra-vineyard variability. Molecular analysis at the gene expression level can further contribute to the understanding of the observed variability by elucidating how pathways responsible for different grape quality traits behave in zones diverging for one or the other parameter. The intra-vineyard variability of a Cabernet Sauvignon vineyard was evaluated by a standard Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) mapping approach, employing UAV platform, accompanied by detailed ground-truthing (e.g. vegetative, yield, and berry ripening compositional parameters) that was applied in 14 spots in the vineyard. Berries from different spots were additionally investigated by microarray gene expression analysis, performed at five time points from fruit set to full ripening.