Arsenic in soil, leaves, grapes and wines

The region of viticultural production near Pinto Bandeira, Brazil, is being studied to define typical characteristics of wines locally produced.

Cet article propose la formalisation d’un modèle paramétrique pour représenter l’accumulation des sucres dans les baies de raisin durant la maturation. Le test de ce modèle sur des jeux de données réels a permis de valider l’approche proposée. Une seconde partie est axée sur l’adaptation de la méthode pour permettre la simulation du comportement du millésime en cours dès les premiers relevés de maturité. Ce travail possède de multiples applications dans le domaine de l’aide à la décision.

Considering that global warming is changing berry ripening timing and progression, uncovering the molecular mechanisms and identifying key regulators governing berry ripening could provide important tools in maintaining high quality grapes and wine. NAC (NAM/ATAF/CUC) transcription factors represent an interesting family due to their key role in the developmental processes control, such as fruit-ripening-associated genes expression, and in the regulation of multiple stress responses. Between the 74 NAC family members, we selected 12 of them as putative regulators of berry ripening: NAC01, NAC03, NAC05, NAC11, NAC13, NAC17, NAC18, NAC26, NAC33, NAC37, NAC60 and NAC61.

Somatic embryogenesis (SE) has been used in a variety of biotechnology applications such as virus elimination, cryopreservation, induced mutagenesis and genetic transformation. The SE induction process may cause DNA alterations and ploidy changes, which may provide a source of genetic variability useful for the improvement of agronomic characteristics of plants. This research aims at investigating the spontaneous alterations of the genome in grapevine plants regenerated through SE. Regenerants obtained from different embryogenic events from three different grapevine genotypes (Catarratto, Frappato and Nero d’Avola) were analysed.

Measuring the effect of oxygen consumption on the color of wines as the level of dissolved oxygen decreases over time is very useful to know how much oxygen a wine can consume without significantly altering its color. The changes produced in wine after being exposed to high oxygen concentrations have been studied by different authors, but in all cases the wine has been analyzed once the oxygen consumption process has been completed. This work presents the results obtained with the use of an equipment designed and made to measure simultaneously the level of dissolved oxygen and the spectrum of the wine, during the oxygen consumption process from saturation levels with air to very low levels, which indicate the total consumption of the dosed oxygen[1,2].