Genetic determinism of grapevine development stages as a tool for the adaptation to climate change

Soils in vineyards are recognized as complex agrosystems whose characteristics reflect complex interactions between natural factors (lithology, climate, slope, biodiversity) and human activities. To date, most of the unknown lies in an incomplete understanding of soil ecosystems, and specifically in the microbial biodiversity even though soil microbiota is involved in many key functions, such as nutrient cycling and carbon sequestration. Soil biological properties are indicative of soil quality. Therefore, understanding how soil communities are related to soil ecosystem functioning is becoming an essential issue for soil strategy conservation. Here, we propose to assess the importance of land-cover history on the present-day microbiological and physico-chemical properties. The studied area was selected in the Burgundian vineyards (Pernand-Vergelesses, Burgundy, France) where land occupation has been reconstructed over the last 40 years. Soil samples were collected in five areas reflecting various land cover history (forest, vineyards, shifting from forest to vineyards). For each area, physico-chemical parameters (pH, C, N, P, grain size) were measured and DNA was extracted to characterize the abundance and diversity of microbial communities. The obtained results show significant differences in the five areas suggesting that present-day microbial molecular biomass and bacterial taxonomic is partly inherited from past land occupation. Over longer period of time, such study of land-uses legacies may help to better assess ecosystem recovery and the impact of management practices for a better soil quality and vineyards sustainability.

Oxygen is a key player in oenology, since its effects can be a blessing, benefiting wine quality, or a curse causing irreversible damage.

Saccharomyces cerevisiae is the most commonly used yeast species in winemaking. The recent research showed that non-Saccharomyces yeasts as fermentation starters show numerous beneficial features and can be utilized to reduce wine alcoholic strength, regulate acidity, serve as bioprotectants, and finally improve wine aromatic complexity. The majority of published studies on this topic investigated the influence of sequential or co-inoculations of non-Saccharomyces and S. cerevisiae yeasts on the aroma of final wine.

The metabolomics era started about 22 years ago, and wine was one of the first foodstuff subjects of analysis and investigation by this technique.

Protecting table grape vineyards with white hail‐nets is a common practice in Southern Italy. Hail‐nets result in shading effects of 10‐20 %, depending on their density