From soil to canopy, the diversity of adaptation strategies  to abiotic constraints in grapevine

Climate is clearly one of the most important factors in the success of all agricultural systems, influencing whether a crop is suitable to a given region, largely controlling crop production and quality, and ultimately driving economic sustainability. Today many assessments of a region’s climate comes from a combination of station and spatial climate data analyses that facilitate the evaluation of the general suitability for viticulture and potential wine styles, allows for comparisons between wine regions, and offers growers a measure of assessing appropriate cultivars and sites.

Aim: Managing the influence that terroir in vineyards has on vine development depends on improving our understanding the effect of the interaction of within-site variability, within-vine variability, and management practices (such as pruning types) on phenology and vine development. This study evaluates the consequence of site aspect

The choice of sites for viticulture depends on natural environmental factors, particularly climate, as grapevines have specific climatic requirements for optimum physiological performance and berry quality achievement. In the Stellenbosch wine-producing region, the complex topography and the proximity of the ocean create a variety of topoclimates resulting in different growth conditions for vines within short distances.

The chemistry of wine is notably complex and is modified by ageing of the bottles. The composition of wines is the result of vine production (under the influence of vintage, climate and soils); yeast production (under the influence of juice composition and fermentation management); lactic bacteria production (under the influence of young wine composition and malolactic fermentation management); and of the ageing process either in vats, barrels or bottles or both. The composition is linked to the quality perceived by consumers but also to their origin, sometimes associated to the “terroir” concept.

Syrah is a grape with weak aromatic expression. This atypical grape variety as a fruit allows the production of wines of great reputation for which the aromatic particularity plays an important role. The varietal aroma consists of volatile substances directly perceptible by the olfactory mucosa and of aroma precursors, of which the glycosides constitute an important class.