REVINE project : regenerative agricultural approaches to improve ecosystem services in Mediterranean vineyards

Nei vini rosati, è il colore ad avere il primo impatto con il consumatore. Esso risulterà tanto più accattivante, quanto più elegante e raffinato si presenta.

Context description and research question: an increasing number of farmers are considering the impact of conservation practices on soil health to guide sustainable management of vineyards. Understanding impacts of soil management on soil organic carbon (SOC) is one lever for adoption of agroecological practice with potential to help maintain or improve soil health while building SOC stocks to mitigate climate change (Amelung et al., 2020).

Soil is a three-dimensional complex system, which constitutes a major component of Terroir. Soil characteristics strongly influence vine development, grape oenological potentialities and thus wine quality and style.

The mechanisms behind thiol precursor accumulation in grapes remain incompletely understood, nor are the ways in which they can be improved by agronomic practices. A six-year field trial studied the physiological response of the Swiss white cultivar Vitis vinifera Arvine, rich in varietal thiols and precursors, to canopy management, i.e. leaf removal and canopy height.. Five treatments were set up in a randomized block design to assess the impacts of 1) pre-flowering LR (i.e. pre-flowering or full-flowering stages) and 2) compensating for the leaf area removed in the cluster zone by increasing the trimming height (i.e. 100 or 150 cm canopy height), compared with a non-defoliated control treatment.
Intensive pre-flowering LR severely reduced yield potential (–47% on average) and reduced the concentration of 3-mercaptohexanol precursors (P-3MH) in the must (–21%; p-value < 0.10).

The yeast Metschnikowia pulcherrima is a microorganism of great biotechnological interest, both for improving winemaking processes and for other applications outside the wine supply chain.