Temperature-based phenology modelling for the grapevine 

In the current context of climatic, socio-economic and environmental changes, vinegrowers have to modify their farming systems to reduce environmental impacts while still assuring profitability at farm scale. Organic farming appeared to be an interesting production mode to face these changes.

Soil and climate maps at the 1:10000 scales exist for more than 12’000 ha of Swiss vineyards. The use of these maps as consulting tools for growers remains difficult due to the complexity

Contribution Sparkling wines elaborated following the traditional method undergo a second fermentation in closed bottles of base wines, followed by aging of wines with lees for at least 9 months. Most of the sparkling wines elaborated are white and rosé ones, although the production of red ones is highly increasing. One of the initial problems in red sparkling wine processing is to obtain suitable base wines that should have moderate alcohol content and astringency and adequate color intensity; which is difficult to obtain when grapes must be harvested at low phenolic and industrial maturity stage. The low phenolic maturity degree in the red grapes makes essential to choose an adequate winemaking methodology to obtain the base wines because the extracted polyphenols will vary according the winemaking technique: carbonic maceration or destemmed-crushed grapes.

The viticultural terroir at the Serra Gaúcha region, in Rio Grande do Sul State, Brazil, is analyzed under historical and sociological viewpoints, aiming to understand the origin of its characteristics, and the risks for its continuity.

Wine aging with oak chips is nowadays a common alternative to barrel aging, aiming to improve wine quality through the fast extraction of wood derived compounds. From the pool of wood phenols, ellagitannins have been reported to have the most significant impact on the wine’s organoleptic profile. Their final concentration in wines is influenced by several factors, with toasting level considered as one of the most important.