Swiss terroirs studies

In Alentejo, south of Portugal there is a traditional way of fermenting wines in clay vessels, known as “Vinhos de Talha”. Clay vessels were traditionally impermeabilized using pine pitch, creating a barrier between the fermenting must and the clay. Due to this unusual production technology that uses of clay vessels, instead of inox or wood vessels, “Vinhos de Talha” present unique characteristics increasingly appreciated by national and international consumers when compared with wine obtained by the said traditional methods of winemaking. Although the positive consumers feedback, there is little literature about the physical-chemical characteristics of these wines (Martins et al, 2018; Cabrita et al, 2018). This work aims to characterize the volatile composition of white wines produced in clay vessels with different coatings and to contribute to the knowledge and preservation of these wines that are a unique cultural heritage. Wine samples were produced during 2019 vintage from white grapes, using the traditional technology associated to these wines.

Wine storage ensuring the quality and correct aging is one of the issues that wineries, wine traders and consumers encounter after wine bottling.

AIM: The increasing market competitiveness is promoting the production of special dry wines with distinctive characteristics, obtained either from minor winegrape varieties and/or the inclusion of partially dehydrated grapes.

Wine minerals, including calcium, derive mainly from grape berry extraction, but they could also arise from winemaking additives, processing aids, and other sources.

The characterization of chemical compounds related with quality of grape must and wine is relevant for the viticulture and enology fields. Analytical methods used for these analyses require expensive instrumentation as well as a long sample preparation processes and the use of chemical solvents. On the other hand, near-infrared (NIR) spectroscopy technique is a simple, fast and non-destructive method for the detection of chemical composition showing a fingerprint of the sample. It has been reported the potential of NIR spectroscopy to measure some enological parameters such as alcohol content, pH, organic acids, glycerol, reducing sugars and phenolic compounds.