Investigating water stress-related seasonal and spatial patterns and the possible links with juice and wine compositional parameters

The southern Côtes-du-Rhône vineyard shows a significant variety of ecological facets over the Lower Rhone Valley. Intending to characterize such a variety of “terroir “called vineyard situations, a spatial approach based on identification of soil landscapes has been initiated.

During wine conservation in a bottle, the control of oxygen transfer from the outside environment to the wine inside the bottle is a key parameter that determines the wine quality. Many other factors can also influence the evolution of wine during postbottling aging,

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) are increasingly used to monitor canopy structure and vineyard performance. Compared with traditional remote sensing platforms (e.g. aircraft and satellite), UAVs offer a higher operational flexibility and can acquire ultra-high resolution images in formats such as true color red, green and blue (RGB) and multispectral. Using photogrammetry, 3D vineyard models and normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) maps can be created from UAV images and used to study the structure and health of grapevine canopies. However, there is a lack of comparison between UAV-based images and ground-based measurements, such as leaf area index (LAI) and canopy porosity.

Rio grande do sul is the main grape producing state in Brazil, with the largest wine-growing area, responsible by 90% of the national production of wines and grape juices. Serra Gaúcha is the main vitivinicultural region, where around 15% of the area is destined to produce wines from vitis vinifera L. grapes. This region presents high rainfall during the grape maturation cycle, a factor that leads to great risk of attacks by fungal pathogens. the use of resistant varieties can reduce the cost and quantity of spraying, improving wine quality, focusing on a sustainable vitiviniculture.

Over the last decades, wine analysis has become an important analytical field, with emphasis placed on the development of new methodologies for characterization and elaboration control.