Terroir 2016 banner
IVES 9 IVES Conference Series 9 Terroir factors causing sensory and chemical variation in Riesling wines

Terroir factors causing sensory and chemical variation in Riesling wines

Abstract

The term “terroir”, originated in France, comprises the interaction of soil, climate, and topography with the vines of a specific variety and may be extended to the human impact due to the active choice of viticultural and oenological treatments. Although geological diversity has been described for many vineyard sites, there is only scarce scientific knowledge about how the specific soil or climatic conditions translate into specific sensory differences.

To investigate the sensory impact of terroir, a range of 25 highly diverse vineyard sites were selected in Germany. Riesling grapes were harvested from those sites during five consecutive vintages, which were either processed following a standardised winemaking protocol or according to customary winemaking in the respective wine estate. Eight to ten months after harvest, a descriptive analysis by 20 trained judges characterised the wines by one colour, 14 odor and five taste attributes.

According to sensory analysis, wine originating from different vineyard sites yielded a considerable variation, although they were in close proximity. For example, throughout five vintages wines made from Riesling grapes grown on a loamy loess soil with basalt stones were much more intense in its citrus, peach, mango and honey melon attributes than the wines produced from light colored sandstone, which was described as more sour with vegetative and mineral notes. Applying discriminant analysis, it was possible to group the five bedrock types according to their sensory properties, and identify their typical aroma attributes.

Combining sensory and site specific data, PLS analysis was able to explain 48% of the sensory variation by a combined soil/climate data set with first two dimensions. The highest coefficients of determination were obtained for the explanation of sourness-related attributes (R2 0.82 – 0.94), which correlated with precipitation during the ripening period and the gravel content of the soil. The odour of honeydew melon was related to the sum of growing degree days, calcium and clay content of the soil plant available water.
Extracted flavor compounds of the wines were also analysed by GC-MS and used to group different terroirs. Furthermore, concentration of flavor compounds could be linked as well with soil and climate data using PLS-regression as well as to link them with sensory perception. 

Overall, this research could address specifically the impact of individual versus standardized winemaking, since wines were obtained from both sources, but from identical grape material. Throughout five vintages and 24 vineyard sites, customized winemaking was superior to distinguish the different terroirs to a greater extent than standardized winemaking.
Based on the analysis of up to 105 wine samples the impact of terroir could be demonstrated on a very robust data basis. Knowledge gained on how site-specific soil and climate parameters contribute to sensory differences in the wines will be an important contribution to communicating the concept of terroir to consumers.”

DOI:

Publication date: June 24, 2020

Issue: Terroir 2016

Type: Article

Authors

Ulrich Fischer (1), Andrea Bauer (2), Stefan Koschinski (3), Sascha Wolz (1), Anette Schormann (1) and Hans-Georg Schmarr (1)

(1) Institute for Viticulture and Oenology, DLR Rheinpfalz, Breitenweg 71, 67435 Neustadt/Wstr. Germany.
(2) Department of Life Sciences, University of Applied Science, Hamburg, Germany
(3) Almsco/Markes International, Germany

Contact the author

Keywords

Terroir, wine, viticulture, Riesling, aroma compounds

Tags

IVES Conference Series | Terroir 2016

Citation

Related articles…

A blueprint for managing vine physiological balance at different spatial and temporal scales in Champagne

In Champagne, the vine adaptation to different climatic and technical changes during these last 20 years can be seen through physiological balance disruptions. These disruptions emphasize the general grapevine decline. Since the 2000s, among other nitrogen stress indicators, the must nitrogen has been decreasing. The combination of restricted mineral fertilizers and herbicide use, the growing variability of spring rainfall, the increasing thermal stress as well as the soil type heterogeneity are only a few underlying factors that trigger loss of physiological balance in the vineyards. It is important to weigh and quantify the impact of these factors on the vine. In order to do so, the Comité Champagne uses two key-tools: networking and modelization. The use of quantitative and harmonized ecophysiological indicators is necessary, especially in large spatial scales such as the Champagne appellation. A working group with different professional structures of Champagne has been launched by the Comité Champagne in order to create a common ecophysiology protocol and thus monitor the vine physiology, yearly, around 100 plots, with various cultural practices and types of soil. The use of crop modelling to follow the vine physiological balance within different pedoclimatic conditions enables to understand the present balance but also predict the possible disruptions to come in future climatic scenarios. The physiological references created each year through the working group, benefit the calibration of the STICS model used in Champagne. In return, the model delivers ecophysiology indicators, on a daily scale and can be used on very different types of soils. This study will present the bottom-up method used to give accurate information on the impacts of soil, climate and cultural practices on vine physiology.

Towards a regional mapping of vine water status based on crowdsourcing observations

Monitoring vine water status is a major challenge for vineyard management because it influences both yield and harvest quality. It is also a challenge at the territorial scale for identifying periods of high water restriction or zones regularly impacted by water stress. This information is of major importance for defining collective strategies, anticipating harvest logistic or applying for irrigation authorisation. At this spatial scale, existing tools and methods for monitoring vine water status are few and often require strong assumptions (e.g. water balance model). This paper proposes to consider a collaborative collection of observations by winegrowers and wine industry stakeholders (crowdsourcing) as an interesting alternative. Indeed, it allows the collection of a large number of field observations while pooling the collection effort. However, the feasibility of such a project and its interest in monitoring vine water status at regional scale has never been tested.

The objective of this article is to explore the possibility of making a regional map of vine water status based on crowdsourcing observations. It is based on the study of the free mobile application ApeX-Vigne, which allows the collection of observations about vine shoot growth. This information is easy to collect and can be considered, under certain conditions, as a proxy for vine water status. This article presents the first results obtained from the nearly 18,000 observations collected by winegrowers and wine industry stakeholders during 2019, 2020 and 2021 seasons. It presents the vine shoot growth maps obtained at regional scale and their evolution over the three vintages studied. It also proposes an analysis of the factors that favoured the number of observations collected and those that favoured their quality. These results open up new perspectives for monitoring vine water status at a regional scale but above they provide references for other crowdsourcing projects in viticulture.

Effects of graft quality on growth and grapevine-water relations

Climate change is challenging viticulture worldwide compromising its sustainability due to warmer temperatures and the increased frequency of extreme events. Grafting Vitis vinifera L.

VINIoT: Precision viticulture service for SMEs based on IoT sensors network

The main innovation in the VINIoT service is the joint use of two technologies that are currently used separately: vineyard monitoring using multispectral imaging and deployed terrain sensors. One part of the system is based on the development of artificial intelligence algorithms that are feed on the images of the multispectral camera and IoT sensors, high-level information on water stress, grape ripening status and the presence of diseases. In order to obtain algorithms to determine the state of ripening of the grapes and avoid losing information due to the diversity of the grape berries, it was decided to work along the first year 2020 at berry scale in the laboratory, during the second year at the cluster scale and on the last year at plot scale. Different varieties of white and red grapes were used; in the case of Galicia we worked with the white grape variety Treixadura and the red variety Mencía. During the 2020 and 2021 campaigns, multispectral images were taken in the visible and infrared range of: 1) sets of 100 grapes classifying them by means of densimetric baths, 2) individual bunches. The images taken with the laboratory analysis of the ripening stage were correlated. Technological maturity, pH, probable degree, malic acid content, tartaric acid content and parameters for assessing phenolic maturity, IPT, anthocyanin content were determined. It has been calculated for each single image the mean value of each spectral band (only taking into account the pixels of interest) and a correlation study of these values with laboratory data has been carried out. These studies are still provisional and it will be necessary to continue with them, jointly with the training of the machine learning algorithms. Processed data will allow to determine the sensitivity of the multispectral images and select bands of interest in maturation.

Legacy of land-cover changes on soil erosion and microbiology in Burgundian vineyards

Soils in vineyards are recognized as complex agrosystems whose characteristics reflect complex interactions between natural factors (lithology, climate, slope, biodiversity) and human activities. To date, most of the unknown lies in an incomplete understanding of soil ecosystems, and specifically in the microbial biodiversity even though soil microbiota is involved in many key functions, such as nutrient cycling and carbon sequestration. Soil biological properties are indicative of soil quality. Therefore, understanding how soil communities are related to soil ecosystem functioning is becoming an essential issue for soil strategy conservation. Here, we propose to assess the importance of land-cover history on the present-day microbiological and physico-chemical properties. The studied area was selected in the Burgundian vineyards (Pernand-Vergelesses, Burgundy, France) where land occupation has been reconstructed over the last 40 years. Soil samples were collected in five areas reflecting various land cover history (forest, vineyards, shifting from forest to vineyards). For each area, physico-chemical parameters (pH, C, N, P, grain size) were measured and DNA was extracted to characterize the abundance and diversity of microbial communities. The obtained results show significant differences in the five areas suggesting that present-day microbial molecular biomass and bacterial taxonomic is partly inherited from past land occupation. Over longer period of time, such study of land-uses legacies may help to better assess ecosystem recovery and the impact of management practices for a better soil quality and vineyards sustainability.