Vineyards and grape varieties: what is going on in wine professional and consumer minds?

The Grenache observatory was created in 1995. The object of this 24 parcels network, covering main Rhone Valley soils, is to state the effect of pedo-climatic conditions on plant physiology and wine characteristics. The results concerning colour and tanins show a very important diversity in Grenache behaviour.

Today’s viticulture faces a considerable challenge dealing with fungal diseases and limitations on the use of plant protection products (PPP) have increased the pressure to find more sustainable alternatives. One strategy may be the development and cultivation of disease-resistant grapevine varieties (PIWI) that could maintain crop productivity and quality while reducing dependence on PPP. In this work a set of 9 PIWI varieties (5 white and 4 red) deploying genes for resistance to powdery and downy mildew were evaluated in two consecutive years in Valdegón, La Rioja, with Tempranillo and Viura as controls. The objective was to correlate agronomic performance and disease incidence with the presence of disease resistance genes in two different seasons: with (2023) and without disease pressure (2022).

Depuis le millésime 2002, une étude est menée sur la diversité de la flore fongique de parcelles du cépage chenin, situées essentiellement sur les appellations de Vouvray et Montlouis ; deux appellations séparées par le fleuve nommé la Loire. Les parcelles se situent dans des conditions pédoclimatiques différentes, qui se retrouvent au travers des suivis de maturité et l’état sanitaire.

The reproducibility of elemental profile in wines produced across multiple vintages has been previously reported using grapes from a single scion clone of Vitis vinifera L. cv. Pinot noir. The grapevines were grown on fourteen different vineyard sites, from Oregon to southern California in the U.S.A., which span distances from approximately hundreds of meters to 1450 km, while elevations range from near sea level to nearly 500 m. In addition, sensorial (i.e. aroma, taste, and mouthfeel) and chemical (i.e. polyphenolic and volatile) differences across the different vineyard sites have also been observed among these wines at two aging time points. While strong evidence exists to support that grapes grown in different regions can produce wines with unique chemical and sensorial profiles, even when a single clone is used, the understanding of growing site characteristics that result in this reproducible differentiation continues to emerge. One hypothesis is that the elemental profile that a vineyard site imparts to the grape berries and the resulting wine is an important contributor to this differentiation in chemistry and sensory of wines. For example, various classes of enzymes that catalyze the formation of key aroma compounds or their precursors require specific metals. In this work, we begin to report correlations between elemental and volatile aroma profiles of site-specific Pinot noir wines, made under standardized winemaking conditions, that have been previously shown to be distinguished separately by these chemical analyses.

Face à une concurrence de plus en plus rude entre pays producteurs, le vignoble de l’Anjou, déjà riche par sa diversité, souhaite renforcer sa logique de vins d’ A.O.C., notamment au travers de ses vins rouges.