The Douro region: wine and tourism

The tropical north region of Minas Gerais State is one of the least developed of Brazil and viticulture could be an alternative to develop its agriculture zone. The objective of this work was to evaluate the wine grape production climatic potential of that region.

The aging potential of Burgundy chardonnay wines is considered as quality indicator. However, some of them exhibit higher oxidative sensitivity and premature oxidative aging symptoms, which are potentially induced by no-enzymatic oxidation such as Fenton-type reaction (Danilewicz, 2003). This chemical mechanism involves the action of transition metal, native phenolic compounds and oxygen which promote the generation of highly reactive oxygen species (ROS) such as hydroxyl radicals (OH) or 1-hydroxyethyl radicals (1-HER) from oxidation of ethanol. Such mechanism is involved in the radical oxidation occurring during bottle aging. According to Elias et al.,(2009a), the 1-HER is the most abundant radical in forced oxidation treated wines. Consequently, understanding its evolution kinetic in dry white wines is of great importance.

La qualité des vins dépend de différents facteurs et procédés, notamment de la nature des terrains viticoles. Dans ce travail, nous avons cherché à établir les liens entre descripteurs pédologiques des parcelles et descripteurs sensoriels des vins. Sur la base de Classifications Ascendantes Hiérarchiques (CAH) et d’Analyses en Composante Principale (ACP), il a été possible d’établir des liens entre la nature des parcelles (sableuse, argileuse, sablo-graveuleuse) et certains descripteurs sensoriels des vins (chaleur, astringence, fruit noir) et plus globalement avec le type de vins élaborés.

Context and purpose of the study. Nitrogen (N) limitation enhances the production of phenolic compounds in grapes due to the downregulation of the flavonoid biosynthesis pathway.

Viticulture and grapevine breeding programs have to face and adapt to the rapidly changing growing conditions due to the ongoing climate change, the scarcity of resources and the demand for sustainability within the whole value chain of wine production. In times of highly effective and cost-efficient genotyping technologies routinely applied in plant research and breeding, the need for comparable high-speed and high-resolution phenotyping tools has increased substantially. The disciplines of grapevine research, breeding and precision viticulture picked up this demand – mostly independent from each other – by the development, validation and establishment of different sensor technologies in order to extend management strategies or to transform labor-intensive and expensive phenotyping.