Vineyard soil mapping to optimise wine quality: from ‘terroir’ characterisation to vineyard management

Context and purpose of the study. Reducing pesticide use such as glyphosate, is a key challenge to support sustainability of viticulture systems and resilience of vineyard.

Somatic embryogenesis (SE) has been used in a variety of biotechnology applications such as virus elimination, cryopreservation, induced mutagenesis and genetic transformation. The SE induction process may cause DNA alterations and ploidy changes, which may provide a source of genetic variability useful for the improvement of agronomic characteristics of plants. This research aims at investigating the spontaneous alterations of the genome in grapevine plants regenerated through SE. Regenerants obtained from different embryogenic events from three different grapevine genotypes (Catarratto, Frappato and Nero d’Avola) were analysed.

Sulfites (SO2) are commonly used in the wine industry to preserve products during storage for antiseptic and antioxidant purposes (Oliveira et al., 2011).

Consumers’ demand for non-alcoholic wine has notably increased in the last years: this trend is a consequence of a growing interest in more healthy habits, and as a response to higher alcohol levels in wine due to climate change. In addition, drinking limitations due to physiological/pathological conditions (e.g., pregnancy, diabetes, hepatic disorders), driving regulations, ethical/religious considerations, and high import taxes on alcoholic beverages have positively influenced this marked (us$ 1.6 billion in 2021). International organisation of vine and wine (OIV) established that alcohol content defining wines must not be less than 8.5% vol, (OIV, 2017).

Nitrogen (N) is applied in the vineyard or the winery in wine production systems. The influence of different routes of N application is not well understood.