FIRST APPLICATION OF LACHANCEA THERMOTOLERANS IN THE FERMENTATION OF “VINO SANTO” AS BIOLOGICHAL ACIDIFIER.

Studies on model plants have shown that temporary soil flooding exposes roots to a significant hypoxic stress resulting in metabolic re-programming, accumulation of toxic metabolites and hormonal imbalance. To date, physiological and transcriptional responses to flooding in grapevine are poorly characterized. To fill this gap, we aimed to gain insights into the transcriptional and metabolic changes induced by flooding on grapevine roots (K5BB rootstocks), on which cv Sauvignon blanc (Vitis vinifera L.) plants were grafted.

Chemical and sensory changes occurring in red wine during ageing in oak barrique are due to the slow and gradual entrance of oxygen along with a release of ellagic tannin from the wood. Though oxygen can enter the cask through the bunghole, it is not clear the role of permeation through the wood staves as well as the amount of oxygen entering by permeation. The distribution of the released ellagic tannins in the wine ageing is also unknown. The oxygen passing through the bunghole may have a different wine ageing effect compared to the oxygen permeating through the wooden staves owing to the uneven ellagic tannin concentration throughout the wine.

Untargeted metabolomics has proven to be an effective method to study the impact of the terroir on metabolic profile of wines. In this context, the aim of this study was to evaluate the effects of different soil types on the chemical composition of Mediterranean red wines, through 1H-NMR metabolomics combined with chemometrics.Grapes from Nero d’Avola L. red cultivar cultivated on four different soil types were separately vinified to obtain four different red wines.One milliliter of raw wine was analyzed by means of a Bruker Avance II 400 spectrometer operating at 400.15 MHz

Agriculture, natural resource management and the production and sale of products such as wine are increasingly data-driven activities. Thus, the use of remote and proximal crop and soil sensors to aid management decisions is becoming commonplace and ‘Agtech’ is proliferating commercially; mapping, underpinned by geographical information systems and complex methods of spatial analysis, is widely used. Likewise, the chemical and sensory analysis of wines draws on multivariate statistics; the efficient winery intake of grapes, subsequent production of wines and their delivery to markets relies on logistics; whilst the sales and marketing of wines is increasingly driven by artificial intelligence linked to the recorded purchasing behaviour of consumers. In brief, there is data everywhere!

Opinions will vary on whether these developments are a good thing. Those concerned with the ‘mystique’ of wine, or the historical aspects of terroir and its preservation, may find them confronting. In contrast, they offer an opportunity to those interested in the biophysical elements of terroir, and efforts aimed at better understanding how these impact on vineyard performance and the sensory attributes of resultant wines. At the previous Terroir Congress, we demonstrated the potential of analytical methods used at the within-vineyard scale in the development of Precision Viticulture, in contributing to a quantitative understanding of regional terroir. For this conference, we take this approach forward with examples from contrasting locations in both the northern and southern hemispheres. We show how, by focussing on the vineyards within winegrowing regions, as opposed to all of the land within those regions, we might move towards a more robust terroir zoning than one derived from a mixture of history, thematic mapping, heuristics and the whims of marketers. Aside from providing improved understanding by underpinning terroir with data, such methods should also promote improved management of the entire wine value chain.

Croatian viticulture is mainly based on native grapevine varieties susceptible to various diseases and pests, which leads to unsustainable use of large amounts of pesticides. The sustainable development of viticulture in the future will only be possible by increasing the resistance of the grapevine through the development of new resistant varieties. Breeding programs have been launched in the leading wine-growing countries to develop resistant varieties possessing high-quality levels. Native cultivars from Croatia are not included in the breeding programs of other countries.