Keg wine on tap: a sustainability-oriented innovation

Terroir is about the link between wine and its origin. It has long been understood by sensory evaluation that the taste of wine from a given variety can be related to its origins. Specific organoleptic characteristics of wine are influenced by environmental factors such as soil and climate. By deconstructing the effect of measurable soil and climate parameters on grape and wine aroma compounds,

Bud fruitfulness is a key determinant of the potential and the actual yield. The formation of the grapevine yield spans over a period of two consecutive growing seasons (Ferrara & Mazzeo, 2023).

Ce document présente la situation viticole des appellations d’origine en Argentine, Brésil, Chili et Uruguay.
L’étude s’est restreinte uniquement à ces 4 pays, bien qu’il en existe d’autres avec une production viticole d’une certaine importance.

The wine industry is currently shifting toward more sustainable production systems. There are many reasons for this as the interest of people over climate change and, consequently the wine consumer’s choice toward organic and biodynamic, reduced carbon-footprint, vegan and other environmentally friendly wines. While the viticultural effects of biodynamic and organic practices on wine grapes have been investigated, there is a lack in literature on the general effect on the final quality of wine

Farming management practices aiming at conserving soil moisture have been developed in arid and semiarid-areas facing water scarcity problems. Organic mulching is an effective method to manipulate the crop-growing microclimate increasing crop yield by controlling soil temperature, and retaining soil moisture by reducing soil evaporation. In this sense, the effectiveness of different organic mulching materials (straw mulch and grapevine pruning debris) applied within the row of a vineyard was evaluated on the soil and on the vine in a Tempranillo vineyard located in La Rioja (Spain). Organic mulches were compared with a traditional bare soil management technique (based on the use of herbicides to avoid weed incidence). Mulching coverages favourably influenced the soil water retention throughout all the grapevine vegetative cycle. However, the soil-moisture variation was not the same under different mulching materials, being the straw mulch (SM) the one that retained more water in comparison with grapevine pruning debris (GPD) based-cover. The changes of soil moisture in the upper surface layer (0–10 cm) were highly dynamic, probably due to water vapour fluxes across the soil-atmospheric interface. However, both, SM and GPD reduced these fluctuations as compared with bare soils. A similar trend occurred with soil temperature. Both organic mulches altered soil temperature in comparison with bare soil by reducing soil temperature in summer and raising it in winter. Moreover, the same buffering effect for the temperature on the covered soil also remains in the deeper layers. To conclude, we could see that organic mulching had a positive impact on soil-moisture storage and soil temperature and the extent of this effect depends on the type of mulching materials. These changes led to higher rates of photosynthesis and stomatal conductivity compared to bare soils, also favouring crop growth and grape yields.