Le aree viticole storiche nel mondo: i loro vitigni, la loro protezione e la tipicità dei vini in esse ottenuti

One of the intrinsic parts of a vineyard “terroir” is soil type and one of the characteristics of the soil is it’s colour. This can differ widely from bright white, as for some calcareous soils, to red, as in “terra rossa” soils, or black, as in slate soils.

The parameters that determine the grape quality, and therefore the optimal harvest time, suffer variations during berry ripening, related to climate change, with the widely known problem of the gap between technological and phenolic maturities. However, there are few studies about its incidence on grape nitrogen composition. For this reason, the use of an elicitor, methyl jasmonate (MeJ), alone or with urea, is proposed as a tool to reduce climatic decoupling, allowing to establish the harvest time in order to achieve the optimum grape quality. The aim was to study the effect of MeJ and MeJ+Urea foliar applications on the evolution of Tempranillo amino acids content throughout the grape maturation. Three treatments were foliarly applied, at veraison and 7 days later: control (water), MeJ (10 mM) and MeJ+Urea (10 mM+6 kg N/ha). Grape samples were taken at five stages of maturation: day before the first and second applications, 15 days after the second application (pre-harvest), harvest day, and 15 days after harvest (post-harvest). The amino acids analysis of the samples was carried out by HPLC. Results showed that the evolution of amino acids was similar regardless of the treatment; however, foliar applications influenced the nitrogen compounds content, i.e., there was no qualitative effect but quantitative one. Most of the amino acids reached their maximum concentration in pre-harvest, being higher in grapes from the treatments than in the control. In general, no differences in grape amino acids content were observed between MeJ and MeJ+Urea treatments. Foliar applications with MeJ and MeJ+Urea enhanced the grape amino acids content, without affecting their profile, helping to optimize their quality and allowing to establish a more complete grape ripening standard. Therefore, MeJ and MeJ+Urea foliar applications can be a simple agronomic practice, which has shown promising results in order to enhance the grape quality.

Climate change, particularly drought stress, threatens viticulture sustainability. Understanding scion-rootstock interactions and their link to the grapevine microbiome is key to improving vine health, productivity, and drought resilience.

Evidence for a specific effect of soil mineral composition on wine character is largely anecdotal. However, soil potassium supply to the vine must be properly balanced between deficiency and excess for good fruit quality.

Sustainable viticulture and winemaking continue to represent huge challenges, where a better knowledge about the functional role of biodiversity in the vineyard ecosystems is required.