Evaluation of wood starch content on bench grafting success rate in grapevine

Sustainable weed control with little detrimental effects on vine physiology, yield, berry quality, soil structure, health and biodiversity is a key factor in vineyard management. Few options are available to avoid herbicide utilization and minimize negative effects of frequent tillage on soil quality. The present project aims to investigate and develop different cover management strategies in a cool climate viticultural region in Switzerland. The impact of different treatments on vine, must and wine has been studied in an experimental vineyard in Changins, Switzerland for one year and will be continued over the next three years.

During a three-year study the vineyards of the wine-growing region Carnuntum have been investigated for their terroir characteristics (climate, soil, rocks) and major viticulture functions. As an outcome of the study, various thematic layers and geodata analyses describe the geo-environmental properties and variability of the wine growing region and delimit homogenous multilayer mapping units by using a Geographic Information System.

The complexity of the wine matrix makes the monitoring of the winemaking process crucial. Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR) along with chemometrics is considered an effective analytical tool combining good accuracy, robustness, high sample throughput, and “green character”. Portable and non-portable FTIR devices are already used by the wine industry for routine analysis. However, the analytical calibrations need to be enriched, and some others are still waiting to be thoroughly developed.

Champagne is a well-known wine region in Northern France with distinct terroirs and three main grape varieties. As for any vineyard, wine quality is highly linked to the microbiological characteristics of the raw materials. However, Champagne grape microbiota, especially its fungal component, has yet to be fully characterized. Our study focused on describing this mycobiota, from vine to small scale model wine, for the two main Champagne grape varieties, Pinot Noir and Meunier, using complementary cultural and omics approaches.

Wine lees are the second most important wine by-product in terms of quantity after grape stalk and marc. During aging on lees, it is well known that wine lees yield compounds that act as antioxydant. However the chemical nature of the compounds involved in this behavior (except polyphenols and glutathione) has not yet been totally elucidated. The scarce knowledge of wine lees composition and their potential exploitation make them a promising candidate to obtain new antioxidant products to be used in winemaking. In this study, an eco-sustainable approach to obtain lees extracts exhibiting antioxidant capacity is proposed. Such extracts could be used in a global enological strategy of sulfites level reduction.