Bacterial community in different wine appellations – biotic and abiotic interaction in grape berry and its impact on Botrytis cinerea development

The oxidative stability of white wines is related to a flow of chemical reactions involving a number of native wine containing compounds composing their antioxidant metabolome.

How could the wine industry be more sustainable? To answer this, an Interreg French-Swiss project gathered researchers to help a French keg producer and a Swiss wine distributor make their innovation more ecological, social and economical. What innovation? A reusable plastic keg with a disposable airtight pouch inside.

Varietal flavor is commonly known as the aromatic character of a wine in which the aroma of a particular grape variety predominates. However, not all varieties present particularly pronounced aromas. Therefore, different methods are constantly sought to enhance the aroma of wines with neutral aromatic characteristics, such as the use of glycosidases (1), certain yeast strains (2) or maceration with different agricultural products. In this work, aiming to improve the sensory profile together with the diversification of this product, white wines, derived from a neutral grape variety, were elaborated with the addition of mango peel by-products.

Regarding the food quality, authenticity is one of the most important issues in the context of ensuring the safety and security of consumers, but is also more important when it comes to wine (one of the most counterfeited foods in the world).

The grape variety Gewürztraminer is known to be affected by two physiological disorders namely berry shrivel and bunch stem necrosis. During the season 2014 we noticed a new symptomatology type of ripening disorder on the variety. The new symptom showed not all berries fallowing the normal maturation stages, but single berries remaining at a soft but green stage till harvest. The broad distribution of these so called “green berries” symptoms in different production sites of our region, caused huge damage due to the difficulty of eliminating single berries per bunch before harvesting. Therefore, the Research Centre Laimburg began to investigate the reasons and origins of this new symptom. This work shows the results of first attempts to find causes for the symptom as well as the resulting approach to mitigate symptoms. Applications of magnesium leaf fertilizer showed first promising results against this putative disorder. To study the causal effect of the green berries 30 symptomatic vineyards in 2014 have been selected for a monitoring during the season 2016. To evaluate the foliar nutrient treatment two vineyards have been selected for application of magnesium sulfate and magnesium chloride. Leaf and berry nutrient analysis, as well as the main quality parameters during ripening have been performed. As soon as “green berries” symptoms appeared, incidence and severity have been evaluated. Most of the symptomatic vineyards of the 2016 monitoring showed light to clear magnesium deficit symptoms on their foliage. Only during the seasons 2020 and 2021 “green berries” symptoms could be found in the leaf fertilizer treatment vineyards. Both seasons showed a significant effect of the magnesium treatments to reduce the incidence and severity of the symptom. It seems that the appearance of the “green berries” symptom on Gewürztraminer is correlated to a disturbed uptake of magnesium of the vines.