Macrowine 2021
IVES 9 IVES Conference Series 9 The influence of initial phenolic content on the outcome of pinot noir wine microoxygenation

The influence of initial phenolic content on the outcome of pinot noir wine microoxygenation

Abstract

Over the years, microoxygenation (MOX) has become a popular vinification technique to improve wine sensory qualities. However, among the impacting factors reported, only one published study (Cano-López et al. 2008) investigated the effects of initial phenolic content on wines undergoing MOX. The present study aims to establish the importance of this factor and specifically on light-coloured Pinot noir wines.Two Pinot noir wines with a low (PN1) and high (PN2) phenolic content were sterile filtered after malolactic fermentation and treated with two oxygen doses (i.e., 0.50 ± 0.08 and 2.17 ± 0.3 ppm/day) for 14 days with temperature control at 15oC. Control treatments had no MOX. Afterwards, the wines were aged for 1 month and followed by addition (100 mg/L) with the end point determined 4 days later.The results highlighted the importance of having high anthocyanin content for Pinot noir wines subjected to MOX on colour development. A higher anthocyanin content significantly increased colour intensity and resistant pigments in association with a greater increase in polymeric pigments. However, it did not guarantee colour stability, and bleaching erased the improvement on colour intensity in all wines.

We speculated that improvement of colour stability by MOX would be dependent on acetaldehyde production, forming pigments with the ethyl-bridged covalent bond that is more resistant to cleavage and bleaching. In this trials, limited acetaldehyde formation would expect after the removal of yeast with sterile filtration. Regarding tannin composition, MOX accelerated the decrease of (-)-epigallocatechin extension units in both PN1 and PN2. In PN1, the higher oxygen dosage led to the higher formation of tannin macromolecules and significantly lower tannin yield and (+)-catechin extension units, increasing the proportion of tannin terminals units.

These could be of concern for astringency perception (Ma et al. 2014). Therefore, MOX should be applied to Pinot noir and other low phenolic wines with caution.

DOI:

Publication date: September 13, 2021

Issue: Macrowine 2021

Type: Article

Authors

Yi Yang (Billy) 

The University of Auckland, New Zealand,Paul A. Kilmartin, The University of Auckland Rebecca C. Deed, The University of Auckland Leandro D. ARAUJO, Lincoln University

Contact the author

Keywords

microoxygenation, initial phenolic content, colour development, tannin composition, pinot noir wine

Citation

Related articles…

The impact of climate change on wine tourism in Germany

Climate change is profoundly impacting wine tourism in Germany and presents new challenges for wineries.

Study of the impact of nitrogen additions and isothermal temperature on aroma production in oenological fermentation

Nitrogen and temperature are two important factors that influence wine fermentation and volatile compounds production. Among the different compounds present in the must, nitrogen is an essential nutrient for the management of the fermentation kinetics but it also plays an important role in the synthesis of fermentative aromas. To address the problems related to nitrogen deficiencies, nitrogen additions during alcoholic fermentation have been developed.

Dormancy conundrum: thermal requirements plasticity to reach budburst may be explained by annual environmental dynamics

Deciphering grapevine dormancy is crucial in the current context of climatic challenges: advancing budburst phenology and increased late frost probabilities, observed in the last decades and expected to further increase, require deeper understanding. Beyond higher mean temperatures, abiotic stresses such as water deficit have also been emphasized as actors. In this framework, we aimed at exploring new methodologies for tracking dormancy cycle and testing the interplay on its regulation of temperature dynamics and drought.
In a first experiment, twenty-one Vitis vinifera varieties were monitored during ecodormancy and budburst over three years.

An analytical framework to site-specifically study climate influence on grapevine involving the functional and Bayesian exploration of farm data time series synchronized using an eGDD thermal index

Climate influence on grapevine physiology is prevalent and this influence is only expected to increase with climate change. Although governed by a general determinism, climate influence on grapevine physiology may present variations according to the terroir. In addition, these site-specific differences are likely to be enhanced when climate influence is studied using farm data. Indeed, farm data integrate additional sources of variation such as a varying representativity of the conditions actually experienced in the field. Nevertheless, there is a real challenge in valuing farm data to enable grape growers to understand their own terroir and consequently adapt their practices to the local conditions. In such a context, this article proposes a framework to site-specifically study climate influence on grapevine physiology using farm data. It focuses on improving the analysis of time series of weather data. The analytical framework includes the synchronization of time series using site-specific thermal indices computed with an original method called Extended Growing Degree Days (eGDD). Synchronized time series are then analyzed using a Bayesian functional Linear regression with Sparse Steps functions (BLiSS) in order to detect site-specific periods of strong climate influence on yield development. The article focuses on temperature and rain influence on grape yield development as a case study. It uses data from three commercial vineyards respectively situated in the Bordeaux region (France), California (USA) and Israel. For all vineyards, common periods of climate influence on yield development were found. They corresponded to already known periods, for example around veraison of the year before harvest. However, the periods differed in their precise timing (e.g. before, around or after veraison), duration and correlation direction with yield. Other periods were found for only one or two vineyards and/or were not referred to in literature, for example during the winter before harvest.

Characterization of vine performance using remote sensing tools

Today, a variety of remote sensing tools are used to characterise plant performance. However, the vine is rarely studied, as a major crop specificity is canopy discontinuity. Registered images of the vineyard are anisotropic, therefore difficult to analyse.