Arsenic in soil, leaves, grapes and wines

AIM: To investigate chemical and sensory drivers of regional typicity of Cabernet Sauvignon from different geographical regions of Australia.

Soil mulching is an interesting strategy to reduce soil evaporation, assist in weed control, improve soil structure and organic content, increase soil water infiltration, and decrease diurnal temperature fluctuations

Genetic variants known to produce single residue missense mutations have been associated with phenotypic traits of commercial interest in grapevine. This is the case of the K284N substitution in VviDXS1 associated with muscat aroma, or the R197L in VviAGL11 causing stenospermocarpic seedless grapes. The impact of such mutations on protein structure, stability, dynamics, interactions, or functional mechanism can be studied by computational methods, including our pyDock scoring, previously developed. For this, knowledge on the 3D structure of the protein and its complexes with other proteins and biomolecules is required, but such knowledge is not available for virtually none of the proteins and complexes in grapevine.

Cover crops in vineyards have been extensively studied, as the choice of grass species and their management significantly influence soil properties and vine performance.

In 2010, the OIV adopted a resolution that defines ‘terroir’. The OIV definition understands terroir as the result of the interactions between the physical specificities of a space and human labor, with an emphasis on the subsequently produced collective knowledge (OIV-VITI 333-2010); by doing so, it alludes to the social and cultural dimensions of terroir.