Drought tolerance assessment and differentiation of grapevine cultivars using physiological metrics: insights from field studies

In the Bordeaux vineyards, press wine represents approximately 15% of the total volume of wine produced[1]. Valuing this large volume of wine is necessary from an economic point of view, but also because of their organoleptic contribution to the blend, and their contribution to the construction of wines for laying down. Therefore, this study was developed considering the lack of recent scientific knowledge on the composition of red press wines. The aim of this study is to establish an initial assessment of their chemical composition including aromatic compounds and a phenolic part.

In Ancient Egypt, wine was a luxury product consumed mainly by the upper classes and the royal family and offered to gods in daily religious rituals in the temples.
Since the Predynastic (4000-3100 BC) period, wine jars were placed in tombs as funerary offerings. From the Old Kingdom (2680-2160 BC) to the Greco-Roman (332 BC-395 AD) period, viticulture and winemaking scenes were depicted on the private tombs’ walls. During the New Kingdom (1539-1075 BC), wine jars were inscribed to indicate: vintage year, product, quality, provenance, property and winemaker’s name and title.

Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) are emitted by nearly all plant organs of the plants, including leaves. They play a key role in the communication with other organisms, therefore they are involved in plant defence against phytopathogens. In this study VOCs from grapevine leaves of two varieties of Vitis vinifera infected by Erysiphe necator were analysed. The varieties were selected based on their susceptibility to pathogen, Kishmish Vatkana has the Ren1 resistance gene and Zamarrica showed high susceptibility in previous trials.

Grapevine vigour, defined as the propensity to assimilate, store and/or use non-structural sugars for allowing fast growth of shoots and producing large canopies[1], is crucial to optimize vineyard management. Recently, a model has been proposed for predicting the vigor of young grapevines through the measurement of the vegetative growth and physiological parameters, such as water status and gas exchange[2]. Our objectives were (1) to explore the influence of the association of two grapevine varieties (Tempranillo and Cabernet Sauvignon, grafted onto R110 rootstocks) with arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) on the vegetative vigour of young plants; and (2) to assess the effect of environmental factors linked to climate change on the vegetative vigour of Cabernet Sauvignon.

Wine contains secondary metabolites derived from aromatic amino acids (AADC), which can determine quality, stability and bioactivity. Several yeast species, as well as some lactic acid bacteria (LAB), can contribute in the production of these aromatic compounds. Winemaking should be studied as a series of microbial interactions, that work as an interconnected network, and can determine the metabolic and analytical profiles of wine. The aim of this work was to select microorganisms (yeast and LAB) based on their potential to produce AADC compounds, such as tyrosol and hydroxytyrosol, and design a microbial consortium that could increase the production of these AADC compounds in wines.