Arsenic in berries and its correlation with natural soil content: experience in Trentino (Italy)

Wine cellars are affected by seasonally fluctuating workloads and face challenges especially in the harvest period connected to the required timely processing of the harvested grapes.

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).

Although the ripening process of grapevine berries is well-documented at the vineyard level, pinpointing distinct developmental stages remains challenging. The asynchronous development of berries results in dynamic biases and metabolic chimerism. It is thus crucial to consider individual berries separately and resynchronize their internal clock for deciphering physiological changes throughout development. Given the importance of grape composition in wine quality, we aimed at measuring developmental changes in the metabolome of Syrah single berries from anthesis to over-ripening, without a priori preconceived.

Context and purpose of the study. The Czech Republic is one of the most important grape growers of PIWI varieties in the Europe, as the total area planted with PIWI varieties is almost 1000 ha.

The effect that some extraction techniques, such as ultrasound (Cacciola, Batllò, Ferraretto, Vincenzi, & Celotti, 2013; Povey & McClements, 1988) or microwaves (Carew, Close, & Dambergs, 2015; Carew, Gill, Close, & Dambergs, 2014) produce on the aroma of red wines, when applied to processes of extractive nature, such as pre-fermentative maceration or ageing with oak chips (Spanish oak – Quercus pyrenaica and French oak – Quercus robur) has been studied. The volatile profile was determined by means of gas chromatography coupled with olfactometric and mass spectrometric detection. A sensory analysis was also carried out. No indications were found to show that the pre-fermentative treatment with microwaves or ultrasound modified the sensory profile of the wines whereas the application of such energies during the ageing phase showed some positive trends at sensory level.