Impact of harvest date on the terroir expression and the aroma profile of Touraine Sauvignon wines

The Casablanca Valley (CV) has a complex topography and is located near the Pacific Ocean. These factors generate important climatic differences in relation to other wine producing zones of Central Chile.

Nitrogen fertilization is an important practice to guarantee vineyards sustainability and performance over years, while ensuring berry quality. However, achieving a precise nitrogen fertilization to meet specific objectives of production is difficult. There is a lack of knowledge on the impact of nitrogen fertilizers (soil/foliar; organic/mineral) and different levels of fertilization on the interactions between carbon and nitrogen cycles within the vine. Crop models may be useful in that purpose because they can provide new insights of the effects of fertilization in carbon and nitrogen storage. The objective of this study is to build a model to simulate grapevine carbon and nitrogen content in vines to evaluate the impact of different fertilization strategies in vine growth and yield.

Climate change will increase the frequency of water deficit situation in some European regions, by the increase of the evapotranspiration and the reduction of rainfalls during the growing cycle. This requires finding ways of adaptation, including the use of plant material which is more tolerant to drought. In addition to the varieties used as scions that result in the typicality of wines, rootstocks constitute a relevant way of adaptation to more stressful environmental conditions.

Chemical and sensory changes occurring in red wine during ageing in oak barrique are due to the slow and gradual entrance of oxygen along with a release of ellagic tannin from the wood. Though oxygen can enter the cask through the bunghole, it is not clear the role of permeation through the wood staves as well as the amount of oxygen entering by permeation. The distribution of the released ellagic tannins in the wine ageing is also unknown. The oxygen passing through the bunghole may have a different wine ageing effect compared to the oxygen permeating through the wooden staves owing to the uneven ellagic tannin concentration throughout the wine.

Climate changes and the trend towards organic and more sustainable winemaking highlighted the need to use biological methodologies. The reduction in the use of SO2, the need of the reduction of ethanol content of wines and the now need to reduce or eliminate chemical phytosanitary products, have prompted the search for alternative practices.