Yeasts serve as highly versatile tools in oenology. They do more than just perform alcoholic fermentation. Nowadays, yeasts from various species, naturally present in grapes, are selected for specific non-fermentative applications. For example, the use of selected non-saccharomyces at the early stage of winemaking has become a common practice to limit the growth of unwanted microorganisms. When inactivated, yeasts can be fractionated into soluble and insoluble fractions providing a wide range of benefits related to structural components or specific metabolites.

Vitis vinifera is the most grown grapevine species, which originated about 6 million years ago in the trans-caucasian area as the ancestral (wild) type v. Vinifera spp. Sylvestris. On the other hand, the human being (homo sapiens) is much younger since he originated about 300.000 years ago in north africa.

Commercial grapevine propagation relies on the ability of dormant wood material to develop adventitious roots.

The diversity of soil types in the Western Cape of South Africa leads to high levels of within-vineyard variability. Multispectral remote sensing has received a lot of attention recently in the South-African wine industry in an attempt to identify and deal with this variability.

UNESCO World Heritage as the link, Europe as the area covered. VITOUR network is born on this idea, on Loire Valley Mission and InterLoire’s initiative. It gathers vineyards inscribed on UNESCO World Heritage List.

Double cropping is a novel technique, driven by the extension of the growing season caused by global warming.

“Sulphites” and mainly sulphur dioxide (SO2) is by far the most widely used additive (E-220/INS 220) in winemaking and likely the most difficult to replace. The well-known antioxidant, antioxidasic and antimicrobial properties of SO2 make this molecule a practically essential tool, not only in winemaking, but also in the production of other food products. The current trend in winemaking is the reduction of this unfriendly additive due to its negative effects on health and environmental. In particular, it could cause headaches and intolerance/allergic reactions in sensitive individuals. Wine is considered one of the major contributors of exposure of SO2 in the adult population, when this beverage is included in the diet.

Grape volatile compounds are mainly responsible for wine aroma, so it is important to know the va-rietal aromatic composition throughout ripening process. Currently, there are no tools that allow mea-suring the aromatic composition of grapes, in intact berries and periodically, throughout ripening, in the vineyard or in the winery. For this reason, this work evaluated the use of near infrared spectroscopy (NIR) to estimate the aromatic composition and total soluble solids (TSS) of Tempranillo Blanco berries during ripening. For this purpose, NIR spectra (1100-2100 nm) were acquired from 240 samples of in-tact berries, collected at different dates, from veraison to overripening.

The maturation patterns process has been very studied. In particular the modelization of the sugars and titratable acidity during the ripening period was an important approach, in particular for the prediction of harvest date (Barillere et al., 1988; Jourion et al.,1987; Maujean et al., 1983; Scienza, 1989). In Oltrepò Pavese, the widest viticultural district of Lombardy – Northern Italy – (about 15000 hectares), grape maturation trends shows high variability, due to the large variation in environmental characteristics of vineyards (altitude, exposure, soil type, mesoclimate) and to “cultivar x environment” interaction.

Uno degli aspetti più importanti nel commercio internazionale dei vini a denominazione è quello del riconoscimento dei diritti di esclusiva garantiti sui e dal territorio geografico d’o­rigine. Al fine di cautelarsi nei confronti della sempre più agguerrita concorrenza mondiale, è opportuno adottare adeguate protezioni ufficiali e legali delle denominazioni che possono derivare sia dalla “naturalità” del prodotto stesso che dalla “originalità” più particolare.