Stomatal behaviour of three minority grapevine varieties grown in the La Mancha region (Spain)

With climate change, the occurrence of wildfires has increased in several viticultural regions of the world. Subsequently, smoke taint has become a major issue, threatening the sustainability of the wine industry.

Sessile oak and pedunculate oak have shown several differences of interest for enological purposes. Tannic and aromatic composition among sessile oak or pedonculate oak has been well studied. Sessile oak is generally more aromatic than pedunculated, while the later is more tannic. This scientific point of view is rarely applied to classify oak in cooperages. Most coopers use the type of grain to distinguish wide and thin grain.

One of the main effects of global warming is an increase in the sugar concentration of grapes at harvest time, resulting in wines with a high alcohol content and an unbalanced structure. The fruit to leaf ratio is a key factor in determining the final sugar concentration, and training systems and management techniques can help to control this parameter.

Trellis systems are selected in wine grape vineyards to mainly maximize vineyard yield and maintain berry quality. This study was conducted in 2020 and 2021 to evaluate six commonly utilized trellis systems including a vertical shoot positioning (VSP), two relaxed VSPs (VSP60 and VSP80), a single high wire (SH), a high quadrilateral (HQ), and a guyot (GY), combined with three levels of irrigation regimes based on different crop evapotranspiration (ETc) replacements, including a 25% ETc, 50% ETc, and 100% ETc. The results indicated SH yielded the most fruits and accumulated the most total soluble solids (TSS) at harvest in 2020, however, it showed the lowest TSS in the second season. In 2020, SH and HQ showed higher concentrations in most of the anthocyanin derivatives compared to the VSPs. Similar comparisons were noticed in 2021 as well. SH and HQ also accumulated more flavonols in both years compared to other trellis systems. Overall, this study provides information on the efficacy of trellis systems on grapevine yield and berry flavonoid accumulation in a currently warming climate.

The FUELPHORIA project explores innovative pathways for sustainable energy production, with DEMO 2 focused on transforming winery-derived CO₂ into methane (CH₄) using renewable hydrogen (H₂).