Effects of abscisic acid treatment on Vitis vinifera L. Savvatiano and Mouchtaro grapes and wine characteristics

In 2010, the OIV adopted a resolution that defines ‘terroir’. The OIV definition understands terroir as the result of the interactions between the physical specificities of a space and human labor, with an emphasis on the subsequently produced collective knowledge (OIV-VITI 333-2010); by doing so, it alludes to the social and cultural dimensions of terroir.

The last step in winemaking is packaging the wines for market placement, while preserving the quality attained during vinification. Since the 1980s, 2,4,6-trichloroanisole (TCA) has been recognised as an incidental and random contaminant of cork, with its migration into wine thought to contribute to ‘cork taint’. This molecule is not a cork component and little is known about how it is formed on trees. Its formation from the chlorine used to wash the cork stoppers, long suspected, has been excluded by the abandonment of chlorine washing.

On the market there are several wine grapes which are tolerant to the main fungal diseases. These varieties, commonly defined “resistant”, were developed in the grapevine breeding programs carried out mainly in Germany, France, Hungary and Italy. Some of these cultivars have been included in the national catalogues of wine grape varieties and have sometimes been allowed for specific kinds of wine. The VEVIR project, aimed at the enological evaluation of resistant vines, involves 33 cultivars achieved at the State Institute for Viticulture Freiburg in Germany, the Research Institute of Viticulture and Enology Pecs in Hungary and the Fondazione Edmund Mach S. Michele all’Adige (FEM) in Italy.

Numerous studies have demonstrated the importance of irrigation in improving the grape yield and quality in areas with arid and semiarid climates, particularly in the context of ongoing climate changes. However, the introduction of irrigation in vineyards of the Mediterranean basin is a matter of debate, in particular in those of the Douro Demarcated Region (DDR), due to the limited number of available studies in this region. The present study aimed to evaluate how different irrigation deficits for 6 years would influence production and must quality in Touriga Francesa (TF) and Touriga Nacional (TN) varieties.

This work is a first step to make a map of vineyard soils. The characterization of the soils of the Protected Designation of Origin (D.P.O.) Valdepeñas will allow to group the studied profiles according to their physico-chemical characteristics and the concentrations of most relevant chemical elements. 90 soil profiles were analysed throughout the territory and the soils were sampled and described according to FAO (2006) and classified according to and Soil Taxonomy (2014). All samples were air dried, sieved and some physico-chemical parameters were determined following standard protocols. Also, major and trace elements were analysed by X-ray fluorescence. The statistically study was made using the SPSS program. Trend maps were made using the ArcGIS program. The studied soils have the following average properties: pH, 8.3; electrical conductivity, 0,20 dS/m (low); clay, 18.8% (medium) and CaCO3, 17.1% (high). In the study for the major elements. The major elements of these soils are Si, followed by Ca and Al, with an average content of 203.7 g/kg, 105.5 g/kg and 74.0 g/kg respectively. On the other hand, 27 trace elements have been studied. Of all of them, it can be highlighted the average values of Ba (361.8 mg/kg), Sr (129.3 mg/kg), Rb (83.4 mg/kg), V (74.2 mg/kg) and Ce (70.6 mg/kg). Ba, V and Ce values are higher and the values of Sr and Rb are lower to those found in the literature. The discriminant analysis shows a percentage of grouping of 91%. The content of chemical elements together with the physico-chemical characteristics allows grouping the soils in 4 group according to their order in the classification to Soil Taxonomy; due to the importance of the Calcisols in Castilla-La Mancha, it has been decided to establish them as their own group even if they do not appear in Soil Taxonomy classification.