Coping with extreme climatic events: some lessons from recent work on grapevine under heat peak

In recent years, consumer awareness for consuming healthy and environmental sustainability products has considerably increased [1]. In an ever-changing and highly competitive environment such as the wine sector, production of wines without sulfites, or biodynamic, organic or vegan wines, has experienced an important increase to meet the new needs of consumers [2,3]. Beyond these categories of regulated products, a new concept has emerged: natural wines (NW), for which there is not an established definition or legal regulation. Rather, producers have a personal idea of naturalness under the premise of applying minimal intervention from grape to wine production [4]. In this context, it is hypothesized that self-defined natural wines are different from conventional wines (CW) in their sensory and chemical profile. The predicament of natural wine is based on anecdotic declarations and assumes that minimal intervention guarantees the production of wines with organoleptic properties able to express the “terroir” and thus promote wine diversity, plurality and sensory typicity against the risk of standardization of CW.

Measuring the effect of oxygen consumption on the colour of wines as the level of dissolved oxygen decreases over time is very useful to know how much oxygen a wine is able to consume without significantly altering its colour. The changes produced in wine after being exposed to high oxygen concen-trations have been studied by different authors, but in all cases the wine has been analysed once the oxygen consumption process has been completed. This work presents the results obtained with the use of an equipment designed and made to measure simultaneously the level of dissolved oxygen and the spectrum of the wine, during the oxygen consumption process from saturation levels with air to very low levels, which indicate the total consumption of the dosed oxygen.

Grapevine is one of the most extensively cultivated fruit crops, playing a crucial role in the economies of many grape-growing regions around the world.

Un grand nombre de travaux ont été consacrés à la mise en éyidence et à la quantification de l’effet du climat sur la qualité de la production viticole. IIs ont permis de caractériser les grands types de production à une large échelle géographique, et d’en évaluer les variations interannuelles au niveau des millésimes.

Methoxypyrazines (MPs) are readily extracted from grape berry and rachis during fermentation and can impart “green” and “herbaceous” sensory attributes to wine. Irrespective of whether MPs, including 3-isobutyl-2-methoxypyrazine (IBMP), 3-isopropyl-2-methoxypyrazine (IPMP), and 3-sec-butyl-2-methoxypyrazine (SBMP), are extracted from berry or other vine material, techniques for remediation of wine with overpowering sensory characters attributable to MPs suffer from poor specificity or produce undesirable sensory outcomes, meaning that alternative control approaches are needed.