Macrowine 2021
IVES 9 IVES Conference Series 9 Macrowine 9 Macrowine 2021 9 Grapevine diversity and viticultural practices for sustainable grape growing 9 First characterization of thiol precursors in colombard and gros manseng: comparison of two cultivation practices

First characterization of thiol precursors in colombard and gros manseng: comparison of two cultivation practices

Abstract

AIM: Organic production of wine in the past years has known an important augmentation. This type of cultivation practice switches synthetic phytosanitary product for copper-based protection as fungicide. While the effect of copper on soil and vine is understood, few data are published concerning its impact on wine aromas (Darriet et al. 2001) and even less concerning varietal thiol. The aim of this work was to characterize the thiol aromatic potential of Colombard and Gros Manseng grapes and to investigate the effect of copper on thiol precursor biogenesis. We selected 30 parcels (15 conventional and 15 organic) with sampling at harvest for 18 of them and 3 sampling dates during ripening for the other 12 parcels. Chemical analyses of thiol precursors were performed by adapting an UPLC-MS/MS method based upon Stable Isotope Dilution Assay (Bonnaffoux et al. 2017)

RESULTS: With this first characterization, we demonstrated that both varieties presented concentrations of glutathionylated (G3SH) and cysteinylated (Cys3SH) precursors of 3-sulfanylhexan-1-ol up to 454 µg/kg and 21 µg/kg respectively. No precursors of the 4-sulfanyl-4-methylpentan-2-one were detected. So, Colombard and Gros Manseng were ranked in the top of varietal thiol producers with Sauvignon and Pinot Gris grapes (Pena-Gallego et al. 2012). By comparing the copper protected parcels to the others, we identified a significant decrease (p-value = 0.01) of G3SH content in organic Gros Manseng grapes which was around 30%. This could represent a loss in 3SH of 1000 ng/kg in finished wines if a conversion rate of 3% between G3SH and 3SH was considered. On the opposite, Colombard grapes remained unaffected by the copper spraying with no effect on the precursors content at harvest. We also analyzed the accumulation kinetics of thiol precursors under the two protection methods (copper or not). No accumulation of thiol precursors between seven days prior and after the harvest was observed in Colombard grapes which was inconsistent with literature on other grape varieties such as Sauvignon B. or Melon B. (Roland et al. 2010). Gros Manseng grapes showed significant accumulation for conventional culture (161 µg/kg to 356 µg/kg) over the two last weeks of ripening. Furthermore, copper treated parcels of Gros Manseng have no accumulation through the two-week study. However, Pearson test did not show a direct correlation between copper content and G3SH suggesting a possible interaction of copper with thiol precursors making them not analyzable under our conditions or a modification of vine metabolism.

CONCLUSION:

We characterized for the first time two grapes varieties (Colombard and Gros Manseng) that have high potential towards varietal thiols such as Sauvignon. We identified a negative copper effect on Gros Manseng variety for both precursors content at harvest and accumulation kinetics while Colombard remained unaffected.

DOI:

Publication date: September 2, 2021

Issue: Macrowine 2021

Type: Article

Authors

Gabriel Dournes, Arnaud VERBAERE, Frédéric LOPEZ, Thierry DUFOURCQ, Jean-Roch MOURET, Aurélie ROLAND

SPO, Univ Montpellier, INRAE, Institut Agro, Montpellier, France, IFV Sud-Ouest, Château de Mons, 32100 Caussens, France

Contact the author

Keywords

copper, thiol precursors, colombard, gros manseng, wine

Citation

Related articles…

Short-term relationships between climate and grapevine trunk diseases in southern French vineyards

[lwp_divi_breadcrumbs home_text="IVES" use_before_icon="on" before_icon="||divi||400" module_id="publication-ariane" _builder_version="4.19.4" _module_preset="default" module_text_align="center" module_font_size="16px" text_orientation="center"...

Assessing the relationship between cordon strangulation, dieback, and fungal trunk disease symptom expression

Grapevine trunk diseases including Eutypa dieback are a major factor in the decline of vineyards and may lead to loss of productivity, reduced income, and premature reworking or replanting. Several studies have yielded results indicating that vines may be more likely to express symptoms of vascular disease if their health is already compromised by stress. In Australia and many other wine-growing regions it is a common practice for canes to be wrapped tightly around the cordon wire during the establishment of permanent cordon arms. It is likely that this practice may have a negative effect on health and longevity, as older cordons that have been trained in this manner often display signs of decay and dieback, with the wire often visibly embedded within the wood of the cordon. It is possible that adopting a training method which avoids constriction of the vasculature of the cordon may help to limit the onset of vascular disease symptom expression. A survey was conducted during the spring of two consecutive growing seasons on vineyards in South Australia displaying symptoms of Eutypa lata infection when symptomless shoots were 50–100 cm long. Vines were assessed as follows: (i) the proportion of cordon exhibiting dieback was rated using a 0–100% scale; (ii) the proportion of canopy exhibiting foliar symptoms of Eutypa dieback was rated using a 0–100% scale; (iii) the severity of strangulation was rated using a 0–4 point scale. Images were also taken of each vine for the purpose of measuring plant area index (PAI) using the VitiCanopy App. The goal of the survey was to determine if and to what extent any correlation exists between severity of strangulation and cordon dieback, in addition to Eutypa dieback foliar symptom expression.

Climate projections over France wine-growing region and its potential impact on phenology

Climate change represents a major challenge for the French wine industry. Climatic conditions in French vineyards have already changed and will continue to evolve. One of the notable effects on grapevine is the advancing growing season. The aim of this study is to characterise the evolution of agroclimatic indicators (Huglin index, number of hot days, mean temperature, cumulative rainfall and number of rainy days during the growing season) at French wine-growing regions scale between 1980 and 2019 using gridded data (8 km resolution, SAFRAN) and for the middle of the 21th century (2046-2065) with 21 GCMs statistically debiased and downscaled at 8 km. A set of three phenological models were used to simulate the budburst (BRIN, Smoothed-Utah), flowering, veraison and theoretical maturity (GFV and GSR) stages for two grape varieties (Chardonnay and Cabernet-Sauvignon) over the whole period studied. All the French wine-growing regions show an increase in both temperatures during the growing season and Huglin index. This increase is accompanied by an advance in the simulated flowering (+3 to +9 days), veraison (+6 to +13 days) and theoretical maturity (+6 to +16 days) stages, which are more noticeable in the north-eastern part of France. The climate projections unanimously show, for all the GCMs considered, a clear increase in the Huglin index (+662 to 771 °C.days compared to the 1980-1999 period) and in the number of hot days (+5.6 to 22.6 days) in all the wine regions studied. Regarding rainfall, the expected evolution remains very uncertain due to the heterogeneity of the climates simulated by the 21 models. Only 4 regions out of 21 have a significant decrease in the number of rainy days during the growing season. The two budburst models show a strong divergence in the evolution of this stage with an average difference of 18 days between the two models on all grapevine regions. The theoretical maturity is the most impacted stage with a potential advance between 40 and 23 days according to wine-growing regions.

Evaluation of climate change impacts at the Portuguese Dão terroir over the last decades: observed effects on bioclimatic indices and grapevine phenology

In the last decades the growers of the Portuguese Dão winegrowing region (center of Portugal) are experiencing changes in climate that are influencing either grape phenology berry health and ripening. Aiming to study the relationships between climate indices (CI), seasonal weather and grapevine phenology, in this work long-term climate and phenological data collected at the experimental vineyard of the Portuguese Dão research centre between 1958 and 2019 (61 years) for the red variety Touriga Nacional, was analyzed. The trends over time for the classical temperature-based indices (Growing Season Temperature – GST -, Growing Degree Days – GDD, Huglin Index – HI and Cool Night Index – CI) presented a significantly positive slope while the Dryness Index (DI) showed a negative trend over the last 61 years. Regarding grapevine phenology, an average advance of 4.5 days per decade in the harvest day was observed throughout the last 61 years. Consequently, the weather conditions during the ripening period have changed, showing an increasing trend over time in the average temperature (higher magnitude in the maximum than in the minimum temperature) and a decrease in the accumulated rainfall. A regression analysis showed that ~50% of harvest date variability over years was explained by the temperature-based indices variability. These observed effects of climate change on bioclimatic indices and corresponding anticipation of harvest date can still be considered advantageous for the Dão terroir as it allows to achieve an optimal berry ripening before the common equinox rains and, therefore, avoid the potential negative impacts of the rainfall on berry health and composition.

Measurement of redox potential as a new analytical winegrowing tool

Excell laboratory has initiated the development of an analytical method based on electrochemistry to evaluate the ability of wines to undergo or resist to oxidative phenomena. Electrochemistry is a powerful tool to probe reactions involving electron transfers and offers possibility of real-time measurements. In that context, the laboratory has implemented electrochemical analysis to assess oxidation state of different wine matrices but also in order to evaluate oxidative or reduced character of leaf and soil. Initially, our laboratory focused on dosage of compounds involved in responses of plant stresses and we were also interested in microbiological activity of soils. These analyses were compared with the measurement of redox potential (Eh) and pH which are two fundamental variables involved in the modulation of plant metabolism. Indeed, the variation of redox states of the plant reflects its biological activity but also its capacity to absorb nutriments. The Eh-pH conditions mainly determine metabolic processes involved in soil and leaf and our goal is to determine if this combined analytical approach will be sufficiently precise to detect biological evolutions (plant health, parasitic attack…).