Population-wide diversity study in Lachancea thermotolerans highlights superior starters for winemaking

The AOC Saint-Emilion, one of the most prestigious in Bordeaux, is located on the right bank of the Dordogne upstream from Libourne. The vineyard is planted on Tertiary (Oligocene) and Quaternary geological formations, on which very varied soils have developed. Numerous studies have taken account of this heterogeneity and made it possible to better understand the functioning and viticultural potential of these soils (Duteau et al. 1981, Van Leeuwen, 1991).

This essay was aimed to describe the clonal diversity of Oenococcus oeni in the malolactic fermentation of the carbonic maceration (CM) winemaking. The free and the pressed liquids from CM were sampled and compared to the wine from a standard winemaking with previous destemming and crushing (DC) of grapes [1]. O. oeni strain typification was performed by PFGE as González-Arenzana et al. described (2014) [2]. Results showed that 13 genotypes, referred as to letters, were distinguished from the 49 isolated strains, meaning the genotype “a” the 27%, the “b” the 14%, the “c” the 12%, the “d and e” the 10 % each other, and the remaining ones less than the 8% each one.

The production of grapes with a balanced composition is one of the main goals that agronomists and oenologists pursue to produce premium quality wines.

Climate change is resulting in more dry and hot summers, accelerating grape ripening and increasing berry sugars concentration. This results in wines with a higher alcohol content, which has a negative impact on wine quality, as well as, on consumer health. Agronomic practices that minimize these effects on berry composition and, consequently, on wine quality must be defined. In this work, different management practices have been assessed on rainfed ‘Monastrell’ grapevines in Jumilla (Murcia, Spain) from 2021 to 2023 vintages. Mulching, shading, application of kaolin and different types of pruning were evaluated, among others field adaptation practices.

One of the major challenges for food security and sovereignty is to produce stress-tolerant plants without introducing foreign DNA, because the legislative process, that bans transgenics, challenges us to find new solutions for producing plants that can survive the drought. To achieve this goal, we need to identify genes that can be modified to improve stress tolerance in plants. In this work, we present an online tool for exploring the transcriptome of grapevines under water stress, which is one of the most important abiotic stresses affecting viticulture. The tool is based on a comprehensive collection of rna-seq data from 997 experiments, covering four different tissues (leaf, root, berry, and shoot), various levels of water stress, and diverse genetic backgrounds (cultivars and rootstocks) with different levels of tolerance to water stress.