Evaluation of the sensory profile of doc douro red wines through sensory traditional single-point techniques and temporal dominance methods

The recent Free Trade Agreement negotiations between Australia and the European Union have again put the issue of Geographical Indications (GIs) in the spotlight. Australia has long demonstrated its understanding of GIs and maintains a clear and rigorous GI protection system for wine. For many years, Australia’s wine sector was a strong advocate for GIs and a strong system to protect the

Noble rot sweet wines are reputed wines, traditionally elaborated according to a singular vinification process involving the harvesting of overripe grapes under the action of the ascomycete fungus Botrytis cinerea.

This study was performed on Chasselas wine to assess the impact of exposure to wine light according to several glass color of bottles. The aim was to highlight any differences whether from an organoleptic or analytical point of view depending on the color. For this, four different shades were compared, dead leaf, green, cinnamon and transparent. A control, not treated with light, was also included in the study. Several tests were carried out with different exposure times in boxes as well as in stores. The bottles were exposed 7 days, 4 days as well as 2 days in box but also 7 days in store. At the end of each test the different modalities were tasted by an expert panel in order to observe any differences between the tint modalities. As a result of these experiments, it was observed that organoleptic differences significant appeared after 2 days of exposure, in particular on the olfactory notes of the reduction. The transparent modality was seen to be significantly more intense on reduction scores compared to other modalities, including the witness in particular. These differences were also observed during all the tests even that of 7 days of exposure in store where we would have thought that there would be no difference. Overall, the control and cinnamon modalities are generally perceived to have more intense notes on the fruity, floral descriptors but less intense for reduction than the transparent shade. For the dead leaf and green modalities, the results are more contrasted and sometimes approach those of the control and other times closer to the transparent modality. Regarding the analytical results, similar conclusions could be drawn with respect to the sensory tests. In fact, the transparent modality is the variant which has an absorbance of the UV-C solution that is twice as high as the other modalities after the 7-day treatment in the chamber. In view of the sensory and analytical results obtained in this study, the choice of the color of the bottles turns out to be an essential element in influencing the intrinsic and extrinsic characteristics of a wine. In order to preserve the qualities of the wine over the medium and long term, dark and opaque tints should be favored. Conversely, a transparent glass could be recommended in the case of rapid consumption of the wine after bottling.

Two transmittance-based chlorophyll meters (SPAD-502 and CCM-200) were evaluated in estimating chlorophyll (Chl) and nitrogen (N) levels in grapevine leaves.

Nearly one third of the Herault vineyard (south of France) is planted on soils very sensitive to water runoff and erosion