Does foliar fertilization with Seaweed improve the productivity and quality of ‘Merlot’ grape must?

Temperature control is crucial in wine production, starting from grape harvest to the bottled wine storage. Climate change and global warming affect the timing of grape ripening, and harvesting is often done during hot summer days, influencing berry integrity, secondary metabolites potential, enzyme and oxidation phenomena, and even fermentation kinetics. To curb this phenomenon, pre-fermentative cold storage can help preserve the grapes and possibly increase the concentration of key secondary metabolites. In this study, the effect of grape pre-fermentative cold storage was assessed on the ‘Moscato bianco’ white grape cultivar, known for its varietal terpenes (65% of free terpenes represented by linalool and its derivatives) and widely used in Piedmont (Italy) to produce Asti DOCG wines.

Vine water status is a crucial determinant of vine growth, productivity, fruit composition and terroir or wine style; therefore, regulating water stress is of great importance. Since vine water status depends on both soil moisture and aerial environment and is very temporally dynamic, direct measurement of vine water potential is highly preferable. Current methods only provide limited data. To regulate vine water status it is critical to monitor vine water status to be able to: (1) measure vine water status to predict the effect of water stress on the overall vineyard performance and fruit quality and optimize harvest management and wine-making (2) properly regulate the water status to impose for a desired fruit quality or style (3) determine if water management has reached the desired stress level.

Over the last decade, much attention has been paid on the oxidative susceptibility of white wines, given its key role in determining their ageing potential.

AIM: Vine diseases are still responsible for economic losses. Previous study in our laboratory, have shown effects of oenological tannins against Botrytis cinerea1,2. According to this, the aim was to evaluate the wine protection by oenological tannins against an another disease, the downy mildew. METHODS: During the 2020 vintage, infected grapes by downy mildew (Vitis vinifera cv. Merlot) were collected from the dispositive ResIntBio. The 100 kg were crushed, destemmed and dispatch into 10 aluminium tanks. SO2 was added at 3 g/hL. Oenological tannins (grape, quebracho, ellagitannin or gallotannin) were added at 100 g/hL into eight different tanks (4×2 tanks). The two last tanks were considered as control without addition of oenological tannins. Alcoholic fermentation was achieved with Actiflore 33® at 20 g/hL. Malolactic fermentation was achieved with Lactoenos B7at 1 g/hL. Finished wines were sulfited to obtain 45 mg/L of total SO2.

Brandy de Jerez (BJ) is a spirit drink made exclusively from spirits and wine distillates and is characterized by the use of casks for aging that previously contained Sherries. The quality and sensory complexity of BJ depend on the raw materials and some factors: grape variety, conditions during processing the wine and its distillation, as well as the aging in the cask. Therefore, the original compounds of the grapes from which it comes are of great interest (1 y 2) being in most cases the Airén variety. Their relationship with the quality of the musts and the wines obtained from them has been studied (3) and varies each year of harvest depending on the weather conditions (4).