Impact of the ‘Pinot’-family on early ripening in cool climate viticulture varieties

Winemaking decisions and techniques are known to affect the final aromatic composition of red wines. Winemakers put a constant effort into the improved controlling of vinification procedures to achieve better quality. Anyway an increased customer’s demand for uniqueness is often forcing them to adjust and offer new and new interesting products. To support the producers, an improved knowledge on aromatic potential as affected by classical and alternative strategies is needed.

The ‘fresh mushroom off-flavour’ has been recognized by the wine industry as an emerging defect since the 2000s. For many years, this off-flavour was not specifically characterized and rather grouped under ‘earthy’ and ‘musty’ taints. However, it has become increasingly problematic due to its rising prevalence. In some vineyards, incidents of this off-flavour now occur as frequently as once every five years. This trend may be associated with climatic changes affecting regions that are more prone to warm and wet seasons.

Downy mildew, caused by Plasmopara viticola, is the most economically impactful disease affecting grapevines. This polycyclic pathogen triggers both primary and secondary infection cycles, resulting in significant yield losses when effective disease control measures are lacking. Over the winter, the pathogen survives by forming resting structures, the oospores, derived from sexual reproduction, which produce the inoculum for primary infections. To optimize grapevine downy mildew control and obtain the desired levels of production while minimizing chemical inputs, it is crucial to optimize the timeframe for fungicide application. Disease forecasting models are useful to identify the infection risk.

Considering that the transfer of research results to the professional level is one of the keys to progress, GiESCO proposes to publish a technical guide supported by scientific references and in the form of standard sheets.

In order to assess climate change at regional scales suitable to viticulture, the outputs of ARPEGE_Climat global model (resolution 0.5°) were downscaled using the Regional Atmospheric