Georgian vitis germplasm: conservation, research and usage

AIM: Wine consumption in the last fifteen years showed a decrease in Europe [1]. New alternatives of wines appeared on the market. Those beverages are obtained by blending wines and fruit juices or flavoring wines with artificial or natural aromas and have medium alcohol content (from 8 to 10.5%) [2]. Recently, an innovative fruit wine has been proposed obtained by co-fermenting grape must and kiwi juice [3] whose potential attractiveness to consumers should be exploited. However, differences in product acceptability and perception, as well as the individuals’ willingness to consume and pay could change in function of subjects socio-demographic characteristics. The target group selected is represented by young adults (18-35 years old) consumption groups.

Pesticide residues in Austrian wines have so far been poorly documented. In 250 wines, 33 grape musts and 45 musts in fermentation, no limit values were exceeded, but in some cases high lev-els (>0.100 mg/l) of single residues were found, meaning that a reduction of these levels before bottling could make sense. In the course of this study, a white and a red wine were spiked with a mix of 23 pesticide residues from the group of fungicides (including botryticides), herbicides and insecticides. The influence of the following treatments on residue concentrations and volatile profiles were investigated: two activated charcoal products, a bentonite clay, two commer-cial mixed fining agents made of bentonite and charcoal, two yeast cell wall products, and a plant fiber-based novel filter additive. The results of this study show that all the agents tested reduced both residues and aromavolatile compounds in wine, with activated charcoal having the strongest effect and bentonite the weakest. The mixed agents and yeast wall products showed less aroma losses than charcoal products, but also lower residue reduction. Plant fibers showed good reduction of pesticides with moderate aroma damage, but these results need to be con-firmed under practical conditions.

Water deficits limit yields and this is one of the negative aspects of climate change. However, this applies particularly when emphasis is on biomass production (e.g. for crops like maize, wheat, etc.)

In the last decades the use of bioestimulants in viticulture have been promoted as alternative to conven- tional pesticides. Moreover, as bioestimulants promote the biosynthesis of secondary metabolites in grape berries, several studies had investigated their influence on the accumulation of phenolic com- pounds (Monteiro et al., 2022). However, few studies, so far, are focused on the accumulation of the vo- latile compounds and their impact on the produced wines (Giménez-Bañón et al., 2022; Gomez- Plaza et al., 2012; Ruiz Garcia et al., 2014).
This study was conducted in a single vineyard of white autochthonous grapevine variety Savvatia- no (Vitis vinifera L.) in Muses Valley (Askri, Viotia, Greece). Chitosan (CHT), Abscisic Acid (ABA) and Benzothiadiazole (BTH) were applied.

Under oenological conditions, when yeasts grow simultaneously during alcoholic fermentation, they often do not coexist passively, and in most cases, physiological and metabolic interactions are established between them. They interact by producing unpredictable compounds and fermentation products that can affect the chemical composition of the wine and therefore alter its aromatic and sensory