Soil electrical resistivity measurement: from terroir characterization to within-field crop inputs management

The quality of a wine is largely related to the balance between its sourness, bitterness and sweetness. Recently, molecules coming from grapes have been showed to notably contribute to sweet taste of dry wines. To study the viticultural and oenological parameters likely to affect their concentration, their quantification appears of high interest and subsequently requires powerful analytical techniques. Therefore, a new method using liquid chromatography coupled to high resolution mass spectrometry (LC-HRMS) was developed and validated to quantify epi-DPA-3′-O-β-glucopyranoside acid (epi-DPA-G) and astilbin, sweet molecules identified in wine. Three gradients were tested on five different C18 columns (Hypersil Gold, HSS T3, BEH, Syncronis and Kinetex).

Grapevine winter hardiness is a key factor in vineyard success in many cool climate wine regions. Winter hardiness may be governed by several factors in addition to extreme weather conditions – e.g. soil factors (texture, chemical composition, moisture, drainage), vine water status, and yield– that are unique to each site.

Aim: The aim of this work is educating people about soil variability and terroir. Soil monoliths are used to educate the wine industry about how to describe a soil profile, interpret the soil formation processes operating in a particular soil profile and consequently the impact of soil properties on vine growth, fruit quality and wine production. Soil monoliths are a permanent artistic tool for educating, research and management of soil variability.  

‘Tempranillo Tinto’ is a black-berried Iberian cultivar that originated from a hybridization between cvs. ‘Benedicto’ and ‘Albillo Mayor’ [1]. Today, it is the third most widely grown wine grape cultivar worldwide with more than 200,000 hectares of vineyards mostly distributed along the Iberian Peninsula, where it is also known as ‘Cencibel’, ‘Tinta de Toro’, ‘Tinta Roriz’, and ‘Aragonez’, among other synonyms. Here, we quantified the intra-varietal genomic diversity in this cultivar through the study of 35 clones or ancient vines from seven different Iberian wine-making regions. A comparative analysis after Illumina whole-genome sequencing revealed the presence of 1,120 clonal single nucleotide variants (SNVs).

Within-field variability can be managed through Precision Viticulture (PV) protocols aiming at identifying homogeneous zones and addressing site-specific operations including selective harvesting (SH). Several authors demonstrated SH profitability in extensive viticulture while few information is available within the Italian context.