Three proximal sensors to estimate texture, skeleton and soil water storage in vineyards

One of the major issues for wine production in Australia is the management and eradication of powdery and downy mildews and the associated yield losses they present, costing Australian grape growers upwards of AUD$160M per annum [1].

The mechanisms behind thiol precursor accumulation in grapes remain incompletely understood, nor are the ways in which they can be improved by agronomic practices. A six-year field trial studied the physiological response of the Swiss white cultivar Vitis vinifera Arvine, rich in varietal thiols and precursors, to canopy management, i.e. leaf removal and canopy height.. Five treatments were set up in a randomized block design to assess the impacts of 1) pre-flowering LR (i.e. pre-flowering or full-flowering stages) and 2) compensating for the leaf area removed in the cluster zone by increasing the trimming height (i.e. 100 or 150 cm canopy height), compared with a non-defoliated control treatment.
Intensive pre-flowering LR severely reduced yield potential (–47% on average) and reduced the concentration of 3-mercaptohexanol precursors (P-3MH) in the must (–21%; p-value < 0.10).

Following its approval in 2013 by Agroscope, Divico became the first interspecific grape variety in Switzerland with high resistance to downy mildew (Plasmopara viticola) and grey rot (Botrytis cinerea), and medium resistance to powdery mildew (Uncinula nectator). Extremely riche in color, Divico grapes showed great enological potential to different styles of wine. Quickly, many wine growers were interested in planting this promising variety. Many of its potential are to be explored in the coming years.

In general, there is a well-established lexicon related to wine aroma and taste properties; however mouth-feel-related vocabulary usually includes heterogeneous, multimodal and personalized terms. Gawel et al.
(2000) published a wheel related to mouthfeel properties of red wine. However, its use in scientific publications has been limited. The authors accepted that the approach had certain limitations as it included redundant and terms with hedonic tone and some others were absent. It is of high interest to generate a mouth-feel lexicon and finding the chemical compound or group of compounds responsible for such properties in red wine. In the present work a chemical fractionation method has been developed.

Historical terrace vineyards are simultaneously impressive documents of the human inclination to design, sites for the production of high quality wines and habitats for a rich variety of flora and fauna