Defining the terroir of the Columbia gorge wine region, Oregon and Washington, USA using geographic information systems (GIS)

Within the DOCa Rioja three main production areas are differentiated: Rioja Alta (RA), Rioja Alavesa (RAv) and Rioja Oriental (RO). They are three diverse territories with particular characteristics that are claimed to give rise to differentiated profiles. The present work aims at evaluating the sensory diversity of young commercial red wines in these three subregions. Therefore 30 young red wines (mainly Tempranillo and vintage 2021), ten from each subregion, were sensory described following a non-verbal free sorting task and a verbal free comment task by 32 well-established Rioja winemakers.

This study is aimed to develop a complete tool for the winemaker with, complete and targeted “winemaking recipes” that can be adapted to criteria set by the winemaker, such as: grape variety, grape health status, degree of ripening, desired wine, redox status throughout the alcoholic fermentation.
To get such aim, specific sets of experiments using red grape juices from different varieties (Nebbiolo, Barbera, Pinot noir, etc.) collected at different technological and phenolic maturity points, will be held with “automatized 4.0 tanks” equipped with sensors for measuring: redox potential, dissolved oxygen, relative density, temperature, and color in order to collect a sufficient amount of data preparatory to the creation of operating models in the most widely winemaking situations in which the automatized 4.0 tanks “will be able to independently respond” with the right corrective actions (opening/closing aeration valve, execution/block pumping overs , etc.) if the key parameters exceed the limits of the recommended ranges set in the selected recipe.

Climate is an important component or determinant of terroir, especially at the regional level. One can define three levels of terroir. These are the macro– or regional scale, which applies over tens of kilometres of the landscape. The second level is the meso- scale, which applies over kilometres or hundreds of meters, at the individual vineyard scale.

Climate change is increasing the frequency and severity of environmental hazards (e.g., prolonged drought), and even non-extreme climate events (e.g., a period of slightly warmer temperatures) can lead to extreme impacts when they occur simultaneously with other (non-extreme) events.

One of the key factors of the economical development of viticulture and wine industry in specific limited areas is the exploitation of ancient, local grape varieties. Therefore, in recent years the growing interest to rediscover minor varieties, previously cultivated, has promoted many studies. With this regard, the focus of this study was the Vitis vinifera L. cultivar Moscato nero d’Acqui, nowadays found only in old vineyards in the Acqui zone (North-West Italy). In particular, the aims of this work were: i) to investigate secondary metabolites profile of the grapes, and ii) to evaluate the attitude to the production of special wines.