Combined use of Lachancea thermotolerans and Schizosaccharomyces pombe in winemaking

The black box of taste is getting unlocked. The starting point is to distinguish taste from tasting. Consider taste as a product characteristic; tasting is a sensorial activity. Consequently, taste can be studied on a molecular level and therefore be assessed more objectively, whilst tasting is a human activity and by definition subjective.

Grape quality potential for wine production is strongly influenced by environmental parameters and agronomic factors. Several studies underline the rootstock effect on scions vegetative growth and berry composition [1] with an impact on wine quality. Rootstocks are promising agronomic tools for climate change adaptation and in most grape-growing regions the potential diversity of rootstocks is not fully used and only a few genotypes are planted. Moreover, little is known about the effect of rootstock genetic variability on the aromatic composition in wines.

Wine industry has to develop new strategies to reduce the negative impact of global climate change in wine quality while trying to mitigate its own contribution to this climate change. The term “ecosystem services”, whose use has been recently increasing, refers to the benefits that human beings can obtain from the interactions between the different living beings that coexist in an environment or system. The management of biodiversity in the vineyard has a positive impact on this crop. It has recently been reported that practices such as plant cover can reduce the occurrence of pests, increase pollination of the vine, improve plant performance1 and affect the phenolic content of grapes.2

Le vigneron est confronté à une variabilité naturelle omniprésente, liée au millésime et aux facteurs pédoclimatiques. Depuis 10 ans, en Champagne, la relation qu’entretient le vigneron avec l’espace a évolué. Les exemples d’entreprises collectives à vocation territoriale se sont multipliés : gestion de l’hydraulique viticole, maillages de groupements de conseil viticole (Magister), sites en confusion sexuelle, réseau maturation, analyses de sols par secteur, …

Wine growing regions have recently faced intense and frequent droughts that have led to substantial economical losses, and the maintenance of grapevine productivity under warmer and drier climate will rely notably on planting drought-resistant cultivars. Given that plant growth and yield depend on water transport efficiency and maintenance of photosynthesis, thus on the preservation of the vascular system integrity during drought, a better understanding of drought-related hydraulic traits that have a significant impact on physiological processes is urgently needed. We have worked towards this end by assessing vulnerability to xylem embolism in 30 grapevine commercial varieties encompassing red and white Vitis vinifera varieties, hybrid varieties characterized by a polygenic resistance for powdery and downy mildew, and commonly used rootstocks. These analyses further allowed a global assessment of wine regions with respect to their varietal diversity and resulting vulnerability to stem embolism. Hybrid cultivars displayed the highest vulnerability to embolism, while rootstocks showed the greatest resistance. Significant variability also arose among Vitis vinifera varieties, with Ψ12 and Ψ50 values ranging from -0.4 to -2.7 MPa and from -1.8 to -3.4 MPa, respectively. Cabernet franc, Chardonnay and Ugni blanc featured among the most vulnerable varieties while Pinot noir, Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon ranked among the most resistant. In consequence, wine regions bearing a significant proportion of vulnerable varieties, such as Poitou-Charentes, France and Marlborough, New Zealand, turned out to be at greater risk under drought. These results highlight that grapevine varieties may not respond equally to warmer and drier conditions, outlining the importance to consider hydraulic traits associated with plant drought tolerance into breeding programmes and modeling simulations of grapevine yield maintenance under severe drought. They finally represent a step forward to advise the wine industry about which varieties and regions would have the lowest risk of drought-induced mortality under climate change.