Malbec wines from Argentina: influence of climate on aromatic components and Organoleptic profile. Is it possible to stablish regional identities?

Vine genetics, fruit maturity, region and vineyard are perceived as factors that strongly influence Pinot noir grape and wine composition. Our study aims to understand the relationship between grape (and ultimately wine) composition and the physical appearance and performance characteristics of a vine (i.e. vine ideotype). Our experimental approach controlled these variables by

One cultivar could produce distinct wines with typical properties and qualities different depending on its cultivated and its mesoclimatic conditions.

In viticulture, a warming climate can have a very significant impact on grapevine development and therefore on the quality and characteristics of wines across different spatial scales, ranging from global to local. In order to adapt wine-growing to climate change, global climate models can be used to define future scenarios, but only at the scale of major wine regions. Despite the huge progress made over the last ten years in terms of the spatial resolution of climate models (now downscaled to a few square kilometres), they are not yet sufficiently precise to account for the local climate variability associated with such parameters as local topography, in spite of these parameters being decisive for vine and wine characteristics. This study describes a method to downscale future climate scenarios to vineyard scale. Networks of data loggers have been used to collect air temperature at canopy level in the Waipara winegrowing region (New Zealand) over five growing seasons. These measurements allow the creation of fine-scale geostatistical models and maps of temperature (at 100 m resolution) for the growing season. In order to model climate change at pilot site scale, these geostatistical models have been combined with regional climate change predictions for the periods 2031-2050 and 2081-2100 based on the RCP8.5 climate change scenario. The integration of local climate variability with regionalized climate change simulations allows assessment of the impacts of climate change at the vineyard scale. The improved knowledge gained using this methodology results from the increased horizontal resolution that better addresses the concerns of winegrowers. The results provide the local winegrowers with information necessary to understand current processes, as well as historical and future viticulture trends at the scale of their site, thereby facilitating decisions about future response strategies.

This study investigated if compositional differences between Shiraz and Cabernet Sauvignon grape varieties could influence the production of yeast-derived compounds. This work was based on the analysis of 40 experimental red wines made in triplicate fermentations from grapes harvested from two consecutive vintages in New South Wales (Australia). Grapes were picked at three maturity stages using berry sugar accumulation as physiological indicator, from nine commercial vineyards located in three different climatic regions (temperate, temperate-warm and warm-hot). A range of 30 yeast-derived wine volatiles including esters and alcohols were quantified by HS/SPME-GC/MS. Ammonia, amino-acids and lipids were analysed in the corresponding grapes. The juice total soluble solids (°Brix) in addition to the wine alcohol and residual sugar levels were also measured. The influence of grape maturity on wine ester composition was also variety dependent, particularly for higher alcohol acetate and ethyl ester of branched acids. This study highlights that varietal differences observed in Shiraz and Cabernet Sauvignon wines involve fermentation-derived compounds irrespective of the site (soil, climate, viticultural practices).

In the O Ribeiro Denomination of Origin, there is a winemaking tradition of growing vines under a high-density plantation framework (8,920 vines/ha) and maintaining its vegetative cycle under rainfed conditions.
Currently, viticulture is advancing to plantation frames in which the density is considered medium (5,555 vines/ha), thus allowing mechanized work to be carried out for vineyard management operations. Although, the application of irrigation applied proportionally to the needs of the vegetative cycle of the vine, is a factor that increasingly helps a good development of the vine compared to the summer period, with increasingly uncertain weather forecasts.