Conservation: the best valorisation strategy for wine growing areas

One of the limitations of vineyards in warm areas is the loss of wine quality due to higher temperatures during the grape ripening period. In order to adapt the vineyards to these new climatic conditions, a possible solution is to delay the ripening process of the grapes towards periods with milder temperatures, by means of management practices and thus improve the quality of the fruit and the wine produced. The technique of severe shoot pruning (SSP) has proven useful in achieving this objective.

Wine is a complex hydroalcoholic solution, with ethanol levels serving as a critical quality parameter.

Wildfires are becoming more common in many areas of the world that are also associated with wine grape production, especially the Pacific northwest United States, Australia and even some areas of France.

In recent years several strategies have been proposed to cope with the effect of climate change on grape berry quality but only a few studies have dealt with the influence of management practices implemented in the field (e.g. irrigation,summer pruning, etc.), on the evolution of wines over time. 

In contrast to fruit and grape berry ripening, the biological processes causing ripening disorders are often much less understood, although shriveling disorders of fruits are manifold and contribute to yield losses and reduced fruit quality worldwide. Shrinking berries are a common feature for all shriveling disorders in grapevine although their timing of appearance during the berry ripening process and their underlying induction processes distinct them from each other. The sugar accumulation disorder Berry Shrivel (BS) is characterized by a suppression of sugar accumulation short after veraison resulting in berries low in sugar content and anthocyanins in berry skins, while the organic acid content is similar. Recent studies analyzed the biochemical, morphological and molecular processes affected in BS berries and linked early changes to the period of ripening onset [1,2].