Terroir or Tūrangawaewae? Expressing sense of place in an emerging New Zealand wine region

Pierce’s disease (PD) is considered a potential threat to european viticulture (EPPO a2 list of pathogens since 1981). In the usa, infections caused by the vector-borne bacterium xylella fastidiosa have caused recurrent damage to vineyards in California and the southeastern states. However, vineyards in Europe have remained free of PD until recently, when it was first detected on the island of Mallorca in 2017. The reasons for the absence of PD in continental Europe have not been convincingly explained.

This summary follows this made by Hervé Hannin et al. Entitled “French wine sector facing climate change (part. 1) : a national strategy built on a foresight and participatory approach “. The french wine sector has taken a collective approach to the issue of climate change, and has officially submitted its strategy to the minister of agriculture in 2021. This industry policy is the result of multidisciplinary work carried out through the “laccave” project (metaprogramme accaf, inrae) and its prospective study designed to anticipate climate change in the french wine industry (aigrain p. Et al., 2016). French wine professionals decided to structure a strategy to deal with climate change du in particular to the presentation made at the 2016 OIV congress in Brazil.

Aim: Climate change is altering some aspects of winegrape production with an advancement of phenological stages which may endanger viticultural areas in the event of a late frost. This study aims to evaluate the potential of satellite-based remote sensing to assess the damage and the recovery time after late frost events.

Background: The Flavan-3-ol extraction from grape skin and seed during red-winemaking and their retention into wines depend on many factors, some of which are modified in the winemaking of blend wines. Recent research shows that Marselan, have grapes with high proportion of skins with high concentrations of flavanols, but produces red-wines with low proportion of skin derived flavanols, differently to the observed in Syrah or Tannat. But the factors explaining these differences are not yet understood.

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.