Smoke tainted wine – what now?

During oak wood contact, wine undergoes important modifications that modulate its organoleptic quality and complexity, including its aroma, structure, astringency, bitterness and color. Vescalagin and castalagin are the two main C-glucosidic ellagitannins found in oak wood used for wine aging wood but lyxose/xylose derivatives (grandinin and roburin e) and dimeric forms (roburins a,b, c and d) are also present. The presence of several hydroxyl groups in the ortho-positions at the periphery of the structure of the ellagitannin isomers allows these molecules to undergo oxidation or condensation reactions with other compounds.

The market of non-alcoholic wine has notably increased in recent years, driven by growing health awareness and regulatory trends aimed at reducing alcohol consumption.

Grapevine (Vitis vinifera L.) is a challenging plant species to transform and regenerate due to its complex genome and biological characteristics. This limits the development of cisgenic and gene-edited varieties. One hurdle is selecting the best starting tissue for the transformation process, much like isolating suitable tissue for protoplasts. One promising method involves delivering crispr/cas components to protoplasts isolated from embryogenic calli, which are then induced to regenerate.

Non-saccharomyces yeasts gained an increased interest in winemaking during the last decades, due to their ability to produce relevant amounts of polysaccharides. Moreover, a significant release of glutathione into the wine during fermentation was also observed with these strains, as well as an improvement of color stability and wine aroma profile. Valuable results have been obtained by hanseniaspora spp. concerning the release of polysaccharides and the production of acetic esters, mainly during fermentation.

This study examines the different strategies adopted by wine exporters located in France for penetrating international alcohol distribution networks in the U.S. market (and to a lesser extent the Canadian market). Grounded in the Business-to-Business (B2B) marketing literature (Ellegaard and Medlin, 2018), this study adopts a framework integrating a ‘Stakeholder’ approach for understanding the logics behind exporters’ strategies to penetrate the alcohol distribution networks (wholesalers, importers, alcohol monopolies).