Terroir valorization strategies in a reformed denomination area: the Prosecco case study

The quality of wine is difficult to define. This is most certainly accredited to everyone´s different perception of quality. Some of the indicators of high-quality wines are color complexity and balance. Color is one of the most crucial attributes of quality, not only for the obvious implications for their perception but also because they are indicators of other aspects related to its aroma and taste.

A great variability in the amount of polysaccharides recovered at the end of fermentations carried out by pure cultures of 89 non-Saccharomyces yeasts was observed. The utilization of the best polysaccharides producers in mixed cultures with S. cerevisiae resulted in considerable increases in the final concentration of polysaccharides and showed a strain dependent effect on glycerol production as compared to pure culture of S. cerevisiae.

In field conditions, grapevine roots are colonized by arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF). Little is known about the species composition of AMF communities associated to grapevine.

Winemaking areas recognized as protected designations of origin (PDOs) shape important economic, environmental and cultural values that are tied to closely defined geographic locations. To preserve wine products and wine-growing practices adopted in different PDOs these areas are strictly regulated by legal specifications. However, quality viticulture is increasingly under pressure from climate change, which is altering the local conditions of many winegrowing areas. Therefore, maintaining traditional wine products will require the adoption of tailored adaptation strategies, including possible changes in the legal regulation of protected wines. To this end, it is necessary to have a comprehensive knowledge on PDOs including their extension, products and allowed practices. While there have been efforts to build databases that summarize the characteristics for individual wine PDO areas and to quantify the related effects of climate change, much information is still included only in the official documentation of the EU geographical indication register and has never been collected in a comprehensive manner. With this study we aim at filling this gap by building a spatial inventory of European wine PDOs that supports decision making in viticulture in the context of climate change. To map and characterize European wine PDOs, we analysed their legal documents and extracted relevant information useful for climate change adaptation. The output consists of a comprehensive geographical dataset that identifies the boundaries of all 1200 European wine PDOs at unprecedented spatial resolution and includes a set of legally binding regulations, such as authorized vine varieties, maximum yields and planting density. The inventory will allow researchers to analyse the impacts of climate change on European wine PDOs and support decision makers in developing tailored adaptation strategies. This includes, among others, the evaluation of new vineyard site selection, the expansion of cultivated varieties or the authorization of irrigation in vineyards.

Chitosan is a biopolymer industrially obtained from the deacetylation of chitin, the second most abundant polysaccharide on earth, after cellulose. It is extracted from various terrestrial and marine resources, including insects, grasshoppers, shrimps, crabs, lobsters, squids, and fungi. chitosan has a polycationic character due to the free amine groups along its chemical backbone, and depending on its deacetylation degree (DD) and molecular weight (MW), it shows variable properties that differ from those of other natural polysaccharides.