Grapevine adaptation to drought and resistance to Neofusicoccum parvum, causal agent of Botryosphaeria dieback

Within the DOCa Rioja three main production areas are differentiated: Rioja Alta (RA), Rioja Alavesa (RAv) and Rioja Oriental (RO). They are three diverse territories with particular characteristics that are claimed to give rise to differentiated profiles. The present work aims at evaluating the sensory diversity of young commercial red wines in these three subregions. Therefore 30 young red wines (mainly Tempranillo and vintage 2021), ten from each subregion, were sensory described following a non-verbal free sorting task and a verbal free comment task by 32 well-established Rioja winemakers.

Reducing sugar accumulation in grape (Vitis vinifera L.) berries may be a way to mitigate the effect of climate change. Managing canopy and crop load is an effective way to do so, however, reducing canopy size has been demonstrated to induce undesirable effects on anthocyanins. The aim of this study was to test if an application of exogenous ABA on the grape berries of defoliated vines (⅔ of the leaves removed) can result in slower sugar accumulation while maintaining grape and wine quality. An experiment with defoliation and exogenous ABA application on directly on clusters (factorial design 2×2) was performed with ‘Tempranillo’ fruit-bearing cuttings.

One of the main aspects of Climate Change is the increase of temperatures during summer and grape maturity period. Physiological processes are influenced by these high temperatures and result in grapes with higher sugar concentration, less acidity and less anthocyanin content among other quality changes. One strategy to deal with the climate change effects is the implementation of late winter pruning to alter the effect of high temperatures during key periods by delays in maturity time.

The definition of soil health is complex due to the lack of agreement on adequate indicators and to the high variability of global soils. Nevertheless, it has been widely used as synonymous of soil quality for more than one decade, and there is a consensus warning of scientists that soil quality and biodiversity loss are occurring due to the traditional intensive agricultural practices.
In this work we monitored a set of soil parameters, both physicochemical and microbiological, in an experimental vineyard under three different management and land use systems: a) addition of external organic matter (EOM) to tilled soil; b) no tillage and plant cover between grapevine rows, and c) grapevines planted in rows running down the slope and tilled soil.

Grapevine (Vitis vinifera L.) exhibits a high level of genetic and phenotypic diversity among the approximately 6000 cultivars recorded. This perennial crop is highly vulnerable to numerous fungal diseases, including esca, which is a complex vascular pathology that poses a significant threat to the wine sector, as there is currently no cost-efficient curative method[1]. In this context, an effective approach to mitigate the impact of such diseases is by leveraging the crop’s genetic diversity. Indeed, susceptibility to esca disease appears to vary between cultivars, under artificial or natural infection. However, the mechanisms and varietal characteristics underlying cultivar susceptibility to esca are still unknown.