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…

Soil quality in Beaujolais vineyard. Importance of pedology and cultural practices

A pedological study was carried out from 2009 to 2017 in Beaujolais vineyard, to improve physical and chemical knowledge of soils. It was completed in 2016 and 2017 by the current study, dealing with microbial aspects, in order to build a reference frame for improved advice in soil management. Microbial biomass was measured on representative plots of the six most common soil types identified in Beaujolais and, for each soil type, on plots with different levels of the main impacting parameters: total organic carbon, pH, cation exchange capacity, extractable copper. A total of 59 soil samples were collected. Confirming the results of various trials carried out in Beaujolais over the past 20 years, the results of the present study showed that the soils were still alive, but exhibited a large variability of biological parameters, which appeared dependant on both pedological and anthropic factors. Therefore, a good interpretation of biological parameters and advice for vine growers must rely on a pedologically-based referential with differentiated main driving factors. For example, the control of pH is of primary importance in granitic soils and in no way organic matter addition can improve soil quality if pH is too low. Conversely, in calcareous soils, biological parameters are more directly affected by direct or indirect (cover crops for example) inputs of organic matter. The use of biological parameters, such as microbial biomass, is of great potential value to improve advice on agro-viticultural practices (soil management, fertilization, liming, etc.), basis of a sustainable wine production on fragile soils.

Making sense of available information for climate change adaptation and building resilience into wine production systems across the world

Effects of climate change on viticulture systems and winemaking processes are being felt across the world. The IPCC 6thAssessment Report concluded widespread and rapid changes have occurred, the scale of recent changes being unprecedented over many centuries to many thousands of years. These changes will continue under all emission scenarios considered, including increases in frequency and intensity of hot extremes, heatwaves, heavy precipitation and droughts. Wine companies need tools and models allowing to peer into the future and identify the moment for intervention and measures for mitigation and/or avoidance. Previously, we presented conceptual guidelines for a 5-stage framework for defining adaptation strategies for wine businesses. That framework allows for direct comparison of different solutions to mitigate perceived climate change risks. Recent global climatic evolution and multiple reports of severe events since then (smoke taint, heatwave and droughts, frost, hail and floods, rising sea levels) imply urgency in providing effective tools to tackle the multiple perceived risks. A coordinated drive towards a higher level of resilience is therefore required. Recent publications such as the Australian Wine Future Climate Atlas and results from projects such as H2020 MED-GOLD inform on expected climate change impacts to the wine sector, foreseeing the climate to expect at regional and vineyard scale in coming decades. We present examples of practical application of the Climate Change Adaptation Framework (CCAF) to impacts affecting wine production in two wine regions: Barossa (Australia) and Douro (Portugal). We demonstrate feasibility of the framework for climate adaptation from available data and tools to estimate historical climate-induced profitability loss, to project it in the future and to identify critical moments when disruptions may occur if timely measures are not implemented. Finally, we discuss adaptation measures and respective timeframes for successful mitigation of disruptive risk while enhancing resilience of wine systems.

Climate, Viticulture, and Wine … my how things have changed!

The planet is warmer than at any time in our recorded past and increasing greenhouse emissions and persistence in the climate system means that continued warming is highly likely. Climate change has already altered the basic framework of growing grapes for wine production worldwide and will likely continue to do so for years to come. The wine sector can continue to play an important role in leading the agricultural sector in addressing climate change. From developing on…

A predictive model of spatial Eca variability in the vineyard to support the monitoring of plant status

[lwp_divi_breadcrumbs home_text="IVES" use_before_icon="on" before_icon="||divi||400" module_id="publication-ariane" _builder_version="4.19.4" _module_preset="default" module_text_align="center" module_font_size="16px" text_orientation="center"...

VINIoT – Precision viticulture service

The project VINIoT pursues the creation of a new technological vineyard monitoring service, which will allow companies in the wine sector in the SUDOE space to monitor plantations in real time and remotely at various levels of precision. The system is based on spectral images and an IoT architecture that allows assessing parameters of interest viticulture and the collection of data at a precise scale (level of grape, plant, plot or vineyard) will be designed. In France, three subjects were specifically developed: evaluation of maturity, of water stress, and detection of flavescence dorée. For the evaluation of maturity, it has been decided first to work at the berry scale in the laboratory, then at the bunch scale and finally in the vineyard. The acquisition of the spectral hyperstal image as well as the reference analyzes to measure the maturity, were carried out in the laboratory after harvesting the berries in a maturity monitoring context. This work focuses on a case study to predict sugar content of three different grape varieties: Syrah, Fer Servadou and Mauzac. A robust method called Roboost-PLSR, developed in the framework of this work (Courand et al., 2022), to improve prediction model performance was applied on spectra after the acquirement of hyperspectral images. Regarding the evaluation of water stress, to work with a significant variability in terms of water status, it has been worked first with potted plants under 2 different water regimes. The facilities have allowed the supervision of irrigation and micro-climatic conditions. The regression models on agronomic variables (stomatal conductance, water potential, …) are studied. To detect flavescence dorée, the experimental plan has consisted of work at leaf scale in the laboratory first, and then in the field. To detect the disease from hyper-spectral imaging, a combination of multivariate curve resolution-alternating least squares (MCR-ALS) and factorial discriminant analysis (FDA) was proposed. This strategy proved the potential towards the discrimination of healthy and infected leaves by flavescence dorée based on the use of hyperspectral images (Mas Garcia et al., 2021).