Determination of secondary metabolites as quality and typicalness tracers in autochthonous vitis vinifera grapes and wines from Ischia isle

Grapevine (Vitis vinifera L.) is a challenging plant species to transform and regenerate due to its complex genome and biological characteristics. This limits the development of cisgenic and gene-edited varieties. One hurdle is selecting the best starting tissue for the transformation process, much like isolating suitable tissue for protoplasts. One promising method involves delivering CRISPR/Cas components to protoplasts isolated from embryogenic calli, which are then induced to regenerate. However, this process is inefficient, time-consuming, and only applicable to a few genotypes. To enhance grapevine regeneration efficiency, the expression of developmental and plant growth regulators shows promise in escaping the recalcitrance encountered in traditional tissue culture methods.

In most viticultural regions, grapevines are cultivated grafted, employing either hybrid or pure species of various American Vitis spp., such as V. berlandieri, V. rupestris, and V. riparia, as grapevine rootstocks. These rootstocks play a crucial role in providing resistance to the Phylloxera insect pest. Beyond Phylloxera resistance, it is desirable for grapevine rootstocks to exhibit resistance to other soil-borne pathogens and adaptability to abiotic stress conditions. The introduction of new rootstocks holds promise for adapting agriculture to climate change without altering the characteristics of the final harvested product.

San Joaquin Valley accounts for 68% of Pinot gris acreage and produces 83% of Pinot gris wine in California. Strong demand for Pinot gris has prompted growers to restrict the nonbearing period

Antagonistic yeasts applied to wine grapes must be compatible with the thereafter winemaking process, avoiding competition with the fermentative Saccharomyces cerevisiae or affecting wine flavour. Therefore, fifteen epiphytic yeasts (6 Metschnikowia sp., 6 Hanseniaspora uvarum, 3 Starmerella bacillaris) previously selected for its biocontrol ability against Alternaria on wine grapes were evaluate for possible competition with S. cerevisiae by the Niche Overlap Index (NOI) employing YNB agar media with 10 mM of 17 different carbonate sources present in wine grapes (proline, asparagine, alanine, glutamic acid, tirosine, arginine, lisine, methionine, glicine, malic acid, tartaric acid, fructose, melibiose, raffinose, rhamnose, sucrose, glucose).

In viticulture, a warming climate can have a very significant impact on grapevine development and therefore on the quality and characteristics of wines across different spatial scales, ranging from global to local. In order to adapt wine-growing to climate change, global climate models can be used to define future scenarios, but only at the scale of major wine regions. Despite the huge progress made over the last ten years in terms of the spatial resolution of climate models (now downscaled to a few square kilometres), they are not yet sufficiently precise to account for the local climate variability associated with such parameters as local topography, in spite of these parameters being decisive for vine and wine characteristics. This study describes a method to downscale future climate scenarios to vineyard scale. Networks of data loggers have been used to collect air temperature at canopy level in the Waipara winegrowing region (New Zealand) over five growing seasons. These measurements allow the creation of fine-scale geostatistical models and maps of temperature (at 100 m resolution) for the growing season. In order to model climate change at pilot site scale, these geostatistical models have been combined with regional climate change predictions for the periods 2031-2050 and 2081-2100 based on the RCP8.5 climate change scenario. The integration of local climate variability with regionalized climate change simulations allows assessment of the impacts of climate change at the vineyard scale. The improved knowledge gained using this methodology results from the increased horizontal resolution that better addresses the concerns of winegrowers. The results provide the local winegrowers with information necessary to understand current processes, as well as historical and future viticulture trends at the scale of their site, thereby facilitating decisions about future response strategies.