Digitalization and valorization of the genotypic and phenotypic information retained within the FEM grapevine germplasm

Telomere length is emerging as a fast, sensitive, and cost-effective genomic biomarker for assessing stress exposure and physiological status in plants.

Developments in high-throughput sequencing (HTS) technologies allow us to obtain large amounts of microbial information from wine and must samples. Thus approaches, that are aimed at characterising the microbial diversity during fermentation, can be enhanced, or possibly even replaced, with HTS-based metabarcoding. To reduce experimental biases and increase data reproducibility, we compared 3 DNA extraction methods by evaluating differences in the fungal diversity with Riesling alcoholic fermentation samples at four different vineyards. The fungal diversity profiling was done using the genetic markers ITS2 and D2 using metabarcoding. The extraction methods compared consisted of a commercial kit, a recently published protocol that includes a DNA enhancer, and a protocol based on a buffer containing common inhibitor removal reagents. All methods were able to distinguish vineyard effects on the fungal diversity, but the results differed quantitatively.

Dealcoholized wines represent a rapidly expanding product category, yet their sensory properties remain insufficiently documented.

Beihong and Beimei are two wine cultivars from ‘Muscat Hamberg’ (V. vinifera L.) and wild V. amurensis Rupr., which were released in China in 2008. Here，two enology practices were reported. Firstly, the impact of different yeasts including D254, GRE, K1, D21 and BDX on dry wine quality of Beihong and Beimei was investigated. For Beihong, among wines fermented by all yeasts, residual sugar content was the lowest, total anthocyanin and resveratrol contents were the highest in the wine by D254. However, the wine by D254 had lower titrable acid than those by the other yeasts except BDX.

Brettanomyces bruxellensis is found in various ecological niches, but particularly in fermentative processes: beer, kombucha, cider and wine. In the oenological sector, this yeast is undesirable, as it can produce ethyl phenols, thus altering wine quality. These compounds are characterized by stable or horse-sweat aromas, unpleasant for consumers.