Sensory definition of green aroma concept in red French wines. Evidence for the contribution of novel volatile markers

This study investigates how the sensory profile of Pinot Blanc is affected from different maceration and pressing techniques. Grapes were sourced from four vineyards in the village Tramin in South Tyrol. For the experiment 200 kg of grapes from each vineyard site were hand picked the day before harvest for the commercial winery took place. Grapes were stored over night at 4°C, homogenized and processed in the experimental winery at Laimburg research centre the day after harvest. Four different pressing techniques were applied in duplicates of 100kg each.

Initiatives have been ongoing in recent years to safeguard biodiversity in the oenological sector via a process of enhancement of ancient varieties, under a pressure of a market strongly oriented towards production deriving from native vines of specific geographical zones. In that sense, Aosta Valley
(Italy) has raised the need to preserve and characterize its minority vine varieties which have the potentiality to give varietal wines. Fumin represents the 7% of the production of the region with 16 hectares of vineyards and 753 hectolitres of derived wine. Due to its large phenolic potential, strong astringency and deep colour, it has long been, and is still today, assembled or blended with other varieties as occurs, for example, for the Torrette.

Under standard champagne tasting conditions, the complex interplay between the level of dissolved CO2 found in champagne, its temperature, the glass shape, and the bubbling rate, definitely impacts champagne tasting by modifying the neuro-physico-chemical mechanisms responsible for aroma release and flavor perception. Based on theoretical principles combining heterogeneous bubble nucleation, ascending bubble dynamics and mass transfer equations, a global model is proposed (depending on various parameters of both the wine and the glass itself), which quantitatively provides the progressive losses of dissolved CO2 from laser-etched champagne glasses.

A part, at least, of the fruity aroma of red wines is the consequence of perceptive interactions between various aromatic compounds, particularly ethyl esters and acetates, which may contribute to the perception of fruity aromas, specifically thanks to synergistic effects.1,2 The question of the indirect impact of non-fruity compounds on this particular aromatic expression has not yet been widely investigated. Among these compounds higher alcohols (HA) represent the main group, from a quantitative standpoint, of volatiles in many alcoholic beverages. Moreover, some bibliographic data suggested their contribution to the aromatic complexity by either increasing or masking flavors of wine, depending of their concentrations.

Sessile oak and pedunculate oak have shown several differences of interest for enological purposes. Tannic and aromatic composition among sessile oak or pedonculate oak has been well studied. Sessile oak is generally more aromatic than pedunculated, while the later is more tannic. This scientific point of view is rarely applied to classify oak in cooperages. Most coopers use the type of grain to distinguish wide and thin grain.