Study of Spanish wine sensory analysis data over a 3-year period

The increased intensity and frequency of heatwaves, coupled with prolonged periods of drought, are a significant threat to viticulture worldwide. During these conditions the more exposed leaves can show visible symptoms of heat damage. We monitored the functionality of photosystem II (PSII) in the field to better understand the impact of heatwaves on canopy performance. A factorial experiment was established in summer 2023 using Shiraz grapevines in the Barossa valley of South Australia, involving water-stressed and well-watered vines.

The Agenda 2030 of the EU sets out the main guidelines for transitioning towards a resilient, green and safe economy. To this regard, the wine sector is experiencing an ecological transition in different ways such as increasing the production of ecological crops, or promoting the production of wines under more environmental-friendly and healthier (i.e., lower levels of SO2) products. These alternatives to conventional production are a smaller proportion of wines, in constant growth and demand, and follow alternative and minority practices, which range from sustainable to deeply philosophical thoughts. Among these methods there are organic, biodynamic and, more recently, natural wines.

Mendoza is one of Argentina’s most important and outstanding wine regions producing the renowned Malbec wines due to its optimal soil and weather conditions. However, the effects of 21st-century climate change would negatively impact Malbec wines quality. This study investigated the effect of temperature increase and the impact of plant hormone abscisic acid (ABA) used to mitigate the negative effect of temperature increase on Malbec wines aromatic composition through GC-MS. Four treatments were applied on vines at field condition: Control, Control + 3 ºC, ABA and ABA + 3 ºC.

In the context of global change, the environmental conditions are expected to be more stressful for viticulture. The choice of the rootstock may play a crucial role to improve the adaptation of viticulture to new biotic and abiotic threats (Ollat et al., 2016). However, the selection of interesting traits in rootstock breeding programs is complex because of the combination of multiple targets in a same ideotype. In this sense, the integration of studies about the genetic architecture for desired biotic and abiotic response traits allow us to identify genomic regions to combine and those with interesting pleiotropic effects.

Recently, foliar treatments with mineral-based compounds have shown positive effects on grapevine production by protecting grape from thermal excesses and reducing the decoupling between technological and phenolic maturity caused by climate change. Unraveling the effect of mineral particle applications on grape-associated microbes is pivotal for successful wine processing, due to the influence of the microbiota on wine composition and stability. To our knowledge, this is the first work that comprehensively studied the effects of kaolin and chabasite-rich zeolitites treatments on grape-related microorganisms (by real-time PCR quantification of total fungi, Hanseniospora uvarum, Metschnikowia pulcherrima, plant-associated bacteria and lactic acid bacteria), the expression of genes related to the flavonoid biosynthesis (PAL1, CHS1, F3H2, DFR, LDOX, UFGT, MYBA1, GST4, FLS4 genes) and the berry composition (°Brix, pH, acidity and anthocyanin concentrations) in cv. Sangiovese during ripening in two growing seasons (2019 and 2020).