Long-Term impact of elevated CO2 exposure on grapevine physiology (Vitis vinifera L. cvs. Riesling & Cabernet Sauvignon)

The production of fermented alcoholic beverages involves numerous processes in which microorganisms and enzymes convert components derived from the raw material into a wide range of compounds that affect the sensory characteristics of the resulting product. It is estimated that there may be as many as 800 to 1,000 such compounds in wine. These compounds belong to different chemical groups such as esters, alcohols, carboxylic acids, carbonyl compounds, polyphenols, sugars and many others.

Alcoholic fermentation plays a crucial role in the winemaking process. In addition to producing ethanol, it results in the formation of various secondary metabolites that significantly influence the wine’s characteristics.

Grapevine (Vitis vinifera) is amongst the world’s most cultivated fruit crops, and of global and economic significance, producing a wide variety of grape-derived products, including wine, and table grapes. The genus Vitis, encompassing approximately 70 naturally occurring inter-fertile species, exhibits extensive genetic and phenotypic diversity, highlighted by the global cultivation of thousands of predominantly Vitis vinifera cultivars. Despite the importance of harnessing its naturally occurring genetic diversity to pursue traits of interest, especially considering the continued and growing demand for sustainable high-quality grape production, the systematic characterization of available functional genetic variants remains limited.

There is currently a real need to improve and speed-up phenotyping in experimental set-ups to increase the number of modalities studied. Accurate information acquisition on plant status with high-throughput capacity is the main appeal of on-board systems.
A proximal sensing camera for a proxy of winter pruning weight was tested. We estimated the shoot volume of the vine by image analysis using algorithms that integrate the local shoot section area estimate along the shoot skeleton obtained by a morphological distance transform.
The study was carried out on the GreffAdapt experimental vineyard in Guyot simple training and a canopy management using vertical trellising. The planting density is 6250 vines/ha with a row spacing of 1.6×1m. Five scions grafted onto 55 rootstocks are present and the combination rootstock×scion is different every five plants.

Terroir leaves its mark on the accumulation of flavours in grape berries, triggering biochemical re-actions and ultimately shaping wine styles.