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

It is common to find tanks in the winery with wine below their capacity due to wine transfers between tanks of different capacities or the interruption of operations for periods of a few days. This situation implies the existence of an ullage space in the tank with prolonged contact with the wine causing its absorption/oxidation. Oxygen uptake from the air headspace over the wine due to differences in the partial pressure of O2 can be rapid, up to 1.5 mL of O2 per liter of wine in one hour and 100 cm2 of surface area1 and up to saturation after 4 hours.

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), as defined by the European Commission, is a strategic framework through which companies integrate social, environmental, and economic sustainability into their operations (European Commission, 2001).

Since the emergence of phylloxera, grafting has been the most used propagation method in viticulture. Despite all the improvement measures implemented in the nurseries, it is frequent that graft success rates vary depending on the nursery process and scion/rootstock combinations. The reasons behind this unsatisfactory behaviour are still unknown and can be diverse, although carbohydrate reserves might be hypothesised to be crucial, since callus, root, and new tissue formation will be built based on them. In order to identify the effect of carbohydrates on grafting success, nine combinations were established based on the starch content in grapevine scionwoods (cv. Tempranillo clone VN69) and rootstocks cuttings (110 Richter clone 237) used for grafting: Low (L), Medium (M), High (H).

The aromatic complexity of a wine results from the perception of the association of volatile molecules and each aroma can be categorized into different families. The “green” aromas family in red wines has retained our attention by its close link with the fruity perception. In that study, the “green” olfactory concept of red wines was considered through a strategy combining both sensory analysis and hyphenated chromatographic techniques including HPLC and MDGC (Multidimensional Gas Chromatography). The aromatic space of this concept was specified by lexical generation through a free association task on 22 selected wines by a panel of wine experts. Then, 70 French red wines were scored on the basis of the intensity of their “green” and “fruity” attributes.

The response of grapevine to drought is a complex trait that involves several morphological adaptations and physiological pathways. In modern viticulture, this response is mediated by the rootstock genotype, which can induce tolerance rather than susceptibility to the scion.