Drought affects vineyard soil microbiome: approach to select micro-organisms adapted to drought

Light-induced reactions can be responsible for detrimental changes of white and rosé wines. This is associated to the photo-degradation of riboflavin (RF) and of methionine (Met) causing the appearance of light-struck taste (LST).

Mouthfeel is an important quality parameter for Chardonnay wines, particularly those aged in oak. While research on mouthfeel has traditionally focused on the impact of non-aromatic compounds, the role of aroma compounds has largely been over looked. However, in wine as well as other food interactions between retronasal aroma and mouthfeel have been noted. The goal of this research was to investigate the impact of wine aroma on the perception of mouthfeel. Because of the importance of oak aging in the development of Chardonnay mouthfeel, the impact of oak aromas on perceived mouthfeel was explored. Aroma compounds associated with oak (ethyl palmitate, eugenol, furfural, isoeugenol, syringaldehyde, vanillin and whiskey lactone) were added to two different Chardonnay wines; one with no oak influence and one fermented in neutral oak. Low and high concentrations of the compounds were added based on concentrations typically found in barrel aged Chardonnay wine.

The sequential activity of miR156 and miR172 controls the juvenile to adult phase transition in many plant species, where miR156 abundance decreases while miR172 increases along plant development. Very little is known about phase transition in horticultural woody species, which show substantially long vegetative phases. In grapevine, phase transition seems to be dissociated, displaying a first transition from juvenile to adult vegetative state in the first year, coincident with tendril differentiation and a subsequent induction of inflorescences in place of some of tendrils in later years under flowering inductive environmental conditions. Since grapevine is a highly heterozygous species, the generation of genetically homogeneous material for replicated transcriptomic analyses from seed-derived plants was a main challenge.

Epidermal Patterning Factors (EPFs) constitute a family of small, highly conserved peptides that regulate diverse physiological and developmental processes in plants.

Wine production is expanding in Scandinavia with a focus on organic growing, and Solaris becoming the signature grape of the region.