Geochemistry of Vrbničko Polje (Croatia) winegrowing site

Depending on the variety, grapes contain several chemical classes of aromatic compounds (i.e., terpenols, norisoprenoids, benzenoids) mainly stored as glycosides in berry skin.

Endogenic diseases often arise from pathogens that exist within the plant tissue, including fungi, bacteria, and viruses, which can remain latent and then emerge under stress conditions or favorable environmental conditions, causing symptoms that weaken vines or can lead to plant death.

Red wines can undergo many undesirable changes during the winemaking process and storage, particularly oxidative degradation due to numerous atmospheric oxygen intakes. This spoilage can impact organoleptic properties and color stabilization but this impact depends on the wine composition. Phenolic compounds constitute primary targets to oxidation reactions

Drought is one of the main challenges for viticulture in the context of global change. The choice of rootstock could be leveraged for vineyard adaptation to drought as we can improve plant performance without modifying the scion variety. However, most of the existing rootstocks, selected over a century ago, have a narrow genetic background which could compromise their adaptive potential.

Context and purpose. The vine is a holobiont, where the plant interacts positively, negatively, and neutrally with microbes that together form the vine’s microbiome.