Which heat test really represents the haze risk of a white Sauvignon wine ?

The concept of terroir is defined by a set of natural and human factors. On the slopy vineyards of the Burgundian « Côte », the « Appellations d’Origine Contrôlée (AOC) » spread out according to the slope in their order of quality : « AOC Grand Cru » at the top, « AOC Premier Cru » and « AOC Village » and « Bourgogne » on the piemont. In order to correlate the hierarchy of the vintages with the evolution of the topographic and pedological criteria, two toposequences were studied, in Gevrey Chambertin (« Côte de Nuits ») and Aloxe Corton (« Côte de Beaune »).

There are yet many gaps in our knowledge about the aroma potential of winemaking grapes and its measurement. Trying to bring some light into this question, a new general strategy based on the accelerated hydrolysis of reconstituted phenolic and aromatic fractions (PAFs) extracted from grapes has been developed

Bentonite fining is commonly used in oenology to remove all or parts of white wine proteins, which are known to be involved in haze formation. This fining is effective, but has disadvantages: it is not selective, thus molecules responsible for aroma are also removed, it causes substantial volume losses, and finally it generates wastes. Over the last decades, the knowledge of wine proteins has increased: they have been identified, their structures are known, some of them have been crystallized.

Postharvest losses of fruits may reach in some cases 40% in developed countries. This food waste has a significant carbon footprint and makes a major contribution toward greenhouse gas emissions so sustainable postharvest strategies are being investigated.
Melatonin, a well-known mammalian neurohormone, has been investigated as a priming agent to slow down fungal decay progression in postharvest climacteric and some non-climacteric fruits. However, the molecular and metabolic mechanisms responsible for such enhancement of disease tolerance are largely unknown.

Astringency is a crucial sensory attribute typically described as the drying and/or puckering sensation occurring after the consumption of tannin-rich foods and beverages. In this study, thirty-seven red wines from different varieties, origins and styles were evaluated, analyzing both chemical and sensory features. Principal Component Analysis was used for dimensionality-reduction and for correlating selected chemical parameters against astringency. The results showed that tannin content was the most important chemical parameter influencing overall astringency but more clearly the dryness sub-quality, followed by pH, titratable acidity and alcohol content.