RED WINE AGING WITHOUT SO₂: WHAT IMPACT ON MICROBIAL COMMUNITY?

Changes in climate have been influencing the quality of wine grapes worldwide. The impact of extreme climate events over short periods is increasingly recognized as a serious risk to grape quality and yield quantity. In this study the mitigation effects of a pulsed water spray on vine canopy during heatwave events has been evaluated for maintaining vine condition during the growing season and grape quality. Vines of three varieties (Malbec, Bonarda, and Syrah) under drip irrigation in the UNCuyo experimental vineyard were treated with an overhead pulsed water spray.

Pre-fermentative skin maceration is a technique used in white wine production to enhance varietal aroma, but it can increase protein concentration, leading to protein instability and haze formation [1]. To prevent protein instability, wine producers typically use fining agents such as bentonite, before wine bottling, which can negatively impact sensory characteristics and produce waste [2,3]. The aim of this study was to understand the impact of alternative techniques such as the application of polysaccharides (k-carrageenan and chitosan) on protein stability and on the wine macromolecular composition.

In recent years, vineyards in Australia, the US, Canada, Chile, South Africa and Europe have been exposed to smoke from wildfires. Wines made from smoke-affected grapes often exhibit unpleasant smoky, ashy characters, attributed to the presence of smoke-derived volatile compounds, including volatile phenols (which occur in free and glycosylated forms). Various strategies for remediation of smoke tainted wine have been evaluated. The most effective strategies involve the removal of smoke taint compounds via the addition of adsorbent materials such as activated carbon, which can either be added directly or used in combination with nanofiltration. However, these treatments often simultaneously remove wine constituents responsible for desirable aroma, flavour and colour attributes.

The definition of the term “quality” in sensory evaluation of food products does not seem to be consensual. Descriptive or liking methods are generally used to differentiate between wines (Lawless et al., 1997). Nevertheless, quality evaluation of a product such as wine can also relate to emotional aspects. As exposed by Costell (2002), product quality is defined as an integrated impression, like acceptability, pleasure, or emotional experiences during tasting. According to the ‘modality appropriateness’ hypothesis which predicts that wine tasters weigh the most suitable sensory inputs for a specific assess- ment (Freides, 1974; Welch & Warren, 1980), the nature of the quality definitions may modulate sensory influences.

This study is aimed to develop a complete tool for the winemaker with, complete and targeted “winemaking recipes” that can be adapted to criteria set by the winemaker, such as: grape variety, grape health status, degree of ripening, desired wine, redox status throughout the alcoholic fermentation.
To get such aim, specific sets of experiments using red grape juices from different varieties (Nebbiolo, Barbera, Pinot noir, etc.) collected at different technological and phenolic maturity points, will be held with “automatized 4.0 tanks” equipped with sensors for measuring: redox potential, dissolved oxygen, relative density, temperature, and color in order to collect a sufficient amount of data preparatory to the creation of operating models in the most widely winemaking situations in which the automatized 4.0 tanks “will be able to independently respond” with the right corrective actions (opening/closing aeration valve, execution/block pumping overs , etc.) if the key parameters exceed the limits of the recommended ranges set in the selected recipe.