Viticultural practices: past, present and future

The positive contribution of toasted vine-shoots (SEGs, Shoot from vines – Enological – Granule) used in winemaking to the chemical and sensory profile of wines has been widely proven. However, the combination of this new enological tool with other winemaking technologies, such as micro-oxygenation (MOX), has not been studied so far. It is known that micro-oxygenation is used in wineries to stabilizes color, improves structure or combining with oak alternatives products to achieve a more effective aroma integration of wines. For that, its implementation in combination with SEGs could result in differentiated wines.

Grapevine phenology has advanced across many regions, nationally and internationally, in recent decades under the influence of increasing temperatures, resulting in earlier
vintages (Jones and Davis, 2000, Petrie and Sadras, 2008, Tomasi et al., 2011, Webb et al., 2011. Earlier vintages have several ramifications for the wine industry. There are direct implications on quality, due to the fruit ripening during the hotter conditions of summer and early autumn, which then impacts grape composition and wine style (Sadras et al., 2013, Buttrose et al., 1971, Mira de Ordũna, 2010). There are also indirect implications where the fruit is perceived to ripen at a faster rate and the crop reach optimum maturity over a shorter period (Coulter et al., 2016).

Within the DOCa Rioja three main production areas are differentiated: Rioja Alta (RA), Rioja Alavesa (RAv) and Rioja Oriental (RO). They are three diverse territories with particular characteristics that are claimed to give rise to differentiated profiles. The present work aims at evaluating the sensory diversity of young commercial red wines in these three subregions. Therefore 30 young red wines (mainly Tempranillo and vintage 2021), ten from each subregion, were sensory described following a non-verbal free sorting task and a verbal free comment task by 32 well-established Rioja winemakers.

The main challenge faced by viticulture is to improve the quality of the wines, adapting them to the new consumer demands that demand wines with lower alcohol content and greater freshness. In the last 30 years, a clear modification has been observed in the composition of the grape due to climate change

The characterization of chemical compounds related with quality of grape must and wine is relevant for the viticulture and enology fields. Analytical methods used for these analyses require expensive instrumentation as well as a long sample preparation processes and the use of chemical solvents. On the other hand, near-infrared (NIR) spectroscopy technique is a simple, fast and non-destructive method for the detection of chemical composition showing a fingerprint of the sample. It has been reported the potential of NIR spectroscopy to measure some enological parameters such as alcohol content, pH, organic acids, glycerol, reducing sugars and phenolic compounds.