Armenia: historical origin of domesticated grapevine

To characterize a wine, the most frequently used criteria describe its color, its origin, the grape varieties from which they come, or even for white wines its residual sugar content (dry, semi-dry, sweet). In france, the system of appellations of origin set up in 1919 was initially based solely on the notoriety and origin of the wines. But given the unfavorable consequences that this lack of details generated, the public authorities quickly integrated in 1927 into the “capus” law criteria for access to designations of origin, relating to the specific characteristics of the soils of the vineyards and the grape varieties used, in particular exclusion of interspecific hybrid varieties. In 1935 the creation of the aoc system confirmed the interest in precisely defining all the production conditions that must be implemented to be able to claim the benefit of an aoc, and grape varieties were an essential condition for acquisition.

The Douro demarcated region constitutes just over 50% of the area of mountain vineyard in the world, i.e., vineyards with slope gradients of 30% or above. Among the different (terraced) vineyard layouts, the formerly preferred wider terraces supporting two rows of vines and the currently advocated narrower single vine row, dominate the vineyards’ planting layout. The slope of these terraces, in other words, the supporting earth ramp, is a key element in these vineyards’ construction.

The results of experimental studies of the method based on the usage of ethyl alcohol as an internal standard for the direct determination of volatile compounds in wines and others alcohol contained products are presented. The method was validated in terms of precision, accuracy, limits of detection and quantification (lod and loq), linearity, and robustness.

Flavescence dorée (FD) is a very serious grapevine disease, classified as quarantine in europe, where it appeared in the middle of the last century. It is associated with the presence of phytoplasmas, transmitted in the vineyard by a leafhopper of american origin, scaphoideus titanus. FD causes severe wine production losses and often leads to plant death. There are currently no alternative solutions to insecticide treatments against the vector and uprooting diseased vines.

Following the acquired awareness of the presence of ochratoxin A in grape derivatives, actions were undertaken to contain this contamination, and attempts were made to evaluate the presence of any other molecule belonging to this class.