Effects of rootstock and environment on the behaviour of autochthone grapevine varieties in the Douro region

Inorganic phosphonates are known to effectively support the control of grapevine downy mildew in vi- ticulture. Their application helps the plant to induce an earlier and more effective pathogen defense. However, inorganic phosphonates have been banned in organic viticulture due to their classification as plant protection products since October 2013. Despite the ban, phosphonate has been recently detected in organic wines.

As an industry that thrives more on, but may also be more affected by, vintage variation and regionality than any other agricultural enterprise, grape and wine production is ever more being impacted challenged by climate change.

Climate is clearly one of the most important factors in the success of all agricultural systems, influencing whether a crop is suitable to a given region, largely controlling crop production and quality, and ultimately driving economic sustainability. Today many assessments of a region’s climate comes from a combination of station and spatial climate data analyses that facilitate the evaluation of the general suitability for viticulture and potential wine styles, allows for comparisons between wine regions, and offers growers a measure of assessing appropriate cultivars and sites.

Accurate and non-destructive monitoring of grape ripening is essential for optimising harvest decisions, particularly under water stress conditions.

The wine closure industry is mainly divided into three categories: screw caps, synthetic closures, and cork-based closures. Among this latter, microagglomerated cork stoppers treated with supercritical CO2 are now widely used, especially to avoid cork taint contaminations[1]. They are designed with cork granules obtained from cork offcuts of the punching process during the natural cork stoppers production. A previous study[2] showed that these stoppers released fewer polyphenols in 12 % (v/v) hydroalcoholic solution than natural cork stoppers.