TOWARDS THE SHELF-LIFE PREDICTION OF OLD CHAMPAGNE VINTAGES DEPENDING ON THE BOTTLE CAPACITY

A lot of work has been done on the impact of Botrytis on the foam of sparkling wines. This work often concerns wines produced in cool regions, where Botrytis is the dominant fungal pathogen. However, in southern countries such as Spain, in particularly hot years such as 2022, the majority fungal pathogen is sometimes Rhizopus. Like Botrytis, Rhizopus is a fungus that produces an aspartic protease.

Color is one of the key elements for the marketing of rosé wines due to their packaging in transparent bottles. Their broad color range is due to the presence of pigments belonging to phenolic compounds extracted from grapes or formed during the wine-making process. However, the mechanisms responsible for such diversity are poorly understood. The few investigations performed on rosé wines showed that their phenolic composition is highly variable, close to that of red wines for the darkest rosés but very different for light ones [1]. Moreover, large variations in the extent of color loss taking place during fermentation have been reported but the mechanisms involved and causes of such variability are unknown.

With the development of naturality expectations, wines produced without any addition of sulfur dioxide (SO₂) become very popular for consumers and such wines are increasingly present on the market. Recent studies also showed that Bordeaux red wines without added SO₂ could be differentiated from a sensory point of view from similar wines produced with SO₂¹. Thus, the aim of the current study was to characterize from a sensory point of view, specific aromas of wines without added SO₂ and to identify compounds involved.

Aging red wines in oak barrels is an expensive and laborious process that can only be applied to wines with a certain added value. For this reason, the use of oak alternatives coupled with micro-oxygenation has progressively increased over recent years, because it can reproduce the processes taking place in the barrels more economically and quickly [1]. Several studies have explored how oak alternatives [2-5] can contribute to wine composition and quality but little is known about the influence of their thickness.

Valpolicella is a famous wine producing region in the province of Verona owing its fame above all to the production of two Protected Designation of Origins (PDOs) withered wines: Amarone and Recioto. In recent years, however, the wineries have been interested in the enhancement and qualitative increase of another PDO, Valpolicella Superiore. All the Valpolicella PDOs wines are produced with a unique grape blend, mainly Corvina, Corvinone, Rondinella and a range of other minor varieties.From 2019 Valpolicella product regulation has changed the grape proportion of the blend allowing new composition parameters of wines. For this reason, studying the volatile chemical profiles to support wine makers in the effort to produce high quality wines represents a field of great interest.