Soil survey and continuous classification for terroir delineation in the “Colli Orientali del Friuli” wine production area

The study of cultural practices to delay ripening and the characterization of their effect on wine composition is important in the mitigation of accelerated ripening caused by higher temperatures

The use of stems during fermentation is generally avoided due to the herbaceous off-odors they can impart to the wine. [1].

Insufficient levels of malate and lack of acidity in commercial grape cultivars (V.vinifera) hinders the quality of fruit grown in warm climates. Conversely, excessive levels of malate and sourness in wild Vitis grape, leads to unpalatable fruit and complicates the introgression of valuable disease resistant alleles through breeding. Nonetheless, albeit decades of research, knowledge regarding the molecular regulation of malate levels in grape remains limited.

Sixty five % of the agricultural area of the Basque Country located in the DO Ca Rioja corresponds to vineyards. More than 40% of it has an average slope greater than 10%, which makes it sensitive to erosive processes. Furthermore, it is foreseeable that extreme weather events (storms, hail, extreme heat and cold, etc.) will be favored due to climate change. Cover cropping can mitigate this risk, and therefore the objective of this work is to evaluate the impact that a vegetable cover has on the agronomic behavior of the vineyard, the quality of the grape and soil erosion. For this, a trial has been carried out with a Graciano variety vineyard with a slope between 10% -20% during the years 2020 and 2021. Conventional tillage management in the area has been compared (4-6 passes per year of tillage machinery) versus spontaneous vegetation cover management in the vineyard. This implies not tilling and allowing the grass of the land to colonize the range between the lines of vines, controlling their height through 1-3 mowing passes per year, always trying to affect the surface of the land as little as possible. The vegetative growth, yield and quality of the grape and wine was measured. Furthermore, erosion has been measured using Gerlasch boxes. The yield was lower in the second year of the trial in the cover crop treatment, but erosion was significantly reduced.

In many regions, climate change leads to an increase in air temperature combined with a reduction of rainfall, intensifying climatic demand and water deficits (WD) (Cardell et al. 2019), which in turn may negatively impact grapevine development, yield and grape composition (Santos et al. 2020). In addition, climate change may also increase disease pressure, leading to further yield and quality losses, besides increasing costs due to increased vineyard spraying (Santos et al. 2020) and reducing viticulture acceptability by consumers (Guichard et al. 2017). Adopting new resistant varieties appears as a promising long-term solution to better manage vine protection, but unfortunately little is known regarding their behavior in front of WD.