Diversity and internationalization of wine grape varieties: Evidence from a revised global database

The development of off-flavours in wine distillates, particularly those associated with the tails fraction, is a key issue in the production of high-quality spirits.

Haze formation in wine during transportation and storage is an important issue for winemakers, since turbid wines are unacceptable for sale. Such haze often results from aggregation of unstable grape proteinaceous colloids. To date, foreseeably unstable wines need to be treated with bentonite to remove these, while excessive quantities, which are often required, affect the wine volume and quality (Cosme et al. 2020). One solution to avoid these drawbacks might be the use of peptidases. Marangon et al. (2012) reported that Aspergillopepsins I and II were able to hydrolyse the respective haze-relevant proteins in combination with a flash pasteurisation. In 2021, the OIV approved this enzymatic treatment for wine stabilisation (OIV-OENO 541A and 541B).

Uruguay is known for the production of Tannat wines, which is a neutral variety from an aroma point of view, but capable of providing aromatic precursors that are of interest in the production of wines for ageing. The main aromatic precursors present are glycosidic compounds and carotenoids. The contribution of carotenoid degradation by-products such as norisoprenoids to wine aroma is fundamental, as they are associated with pleasant aroma descriptors and very low olfactory perception thresholds. Several factors have been shown to influence carotenoid concentrations in grapes, such as cultivar, climatic conditions, viticultural region, plant water status, exposure to sunlight and ripening stage.

“The Human being has an excellent ability to detect and discriminate odors but typically has great difficulty in identifying specific odorants”(1). Furthermore, “from a cognitive point of view the mechanism used to judge wines is closer to pattern recognition than descriptive analysis.” Therefore, when one wants to reveal the volatile “wine-like feature” pattern recognition techniques are required. Sensomics is one of the most recent “omics”, i.e. a holistic perspective of a complex system, which deals with the description of substances originated from microorganism metabolism that are “active” to human senses (2). Depicting the relevant volatile fraction in wines has been an ongoing task in recent decades to which several research groups have allocated important resources. The most common strategy has been the “target approach” in order to identify the “key odorants” for a given wine varietal.

Nel 1990 la Cantina LA VIS ha intrapreso un progetto di zonazione dei terreni vitati allo scopo di acquisire le conoscenze scientifiche atte a consentire il miglioramento delle qualità dei prodotti. Tale progetto si è articolato su di una superficie di 2000 ettari ubicati lungo l’asta fluviale del fiume Adige da Trento a Salorno e del torrente Avisio da Lavis a Segonzano.