Enological potential of red grapes: cultivars and geographic origin of vineyards

In its 2020 beating cancer plan, the european commission announced plans for mandatory warning signs for alcoholic beverages. However, no concrete legislative proposal has been put forward so far. Instead, ireland passed national legislation in 2023 that requires warning signs for all alcoholic beverages from 2026. Despite significant effects for the common market, the eu commission did not this challenge this law in the so-called tris notification procedure. We argue that the commission’s inaction is consistent with the case law of the european court of justice: in the absence of harmonized rules, member states have a large margin of discretion to enact national health measures.

The jurist feels like an intruder when talking about terroirs. He looks at the press and tries to understand. We can read there about the cooking festival of May 30, 1996 which “..highlights products whose quality depends on a region”, that Camembert du pays d’Auge is the only one to be protected, I was thinking of camembert from Normandy, that 80% of Greek feta is made in the Netherlands, I thought it was in Denmark, and that the European Community protects geographical indications of IGP origin, probably a new category replacing the indications protected areas (1). I also learned that distributors are asking for more local products because “they come to confuse the cards in the part engaged with the big brands”. Carrefour has its “Terroirs and drawers”, Prisunic its “Vent d’Ouest”, Intermarché “Les bouquets du terroir”, Monoprix “Les terroirs de France” (2), Promodés and its brand “Reflets de France” for the “Continent” hypermarkets (3). At the same time it is asserted that “The term is a mere common noun. Unprotectable and therefore unprotected” (4).

In a scenario of changing climate conditions, grapevine is significantly affected at multiple levels. Advancements in phenology and berry ripening, however, are the major dynamics of the generalized increase in average temperature and evaporative demand, negatively affecting berry quality and productivity. The aim of this work was to unravel the underlying mechanisms of bunch-zone auxin application (NAA; 1-Naphthaleneacetic acid) and source-limiting canopy management approaches in delaying berry ripening. In randomized block design experiments, control vines were compared to vines treated with NAA, subjected to apical-to-bunch defoliation or antitranspirant application (n=10-to-42 plants per treatment).

The aim of this study was to evaluate the effects of different soil types on the chemical composition of Mediterranean red wines, through untargeted and targeted 1H-NMR metabolomics. One milliliter of raw wine was analyzed by means of a Bruker Avance II 400 spectrometer operating at 400.15 MHz. The spectra were recorded by applying the NOESYGPPS1D pulse sequency, to achieve water and ethanol signals suppression. No modification of the pH was performed to avoid any chemical alteration of the matrix. The generation of input variables for untargeted analysis was done via bucketing the spectra. The resulting dataset was preprocessed prior to perform unsupervised PCA, by means of MetaboAnalyst web-based tool suite. The identification of compounds for the targeted analysis was performed by comparison to pure compounds spectra by means of SMA plug-in of MNova 14.2.3 software. The dataset containing the concentrations (%) of identified compounds was subjected to one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) to highlight significant differences among the wines. The untargeted analysis, carried out through the PCA, revealed a clear differentiation among the wines. The fragments of the spectra contributing mostly to the separation were attributed to flavonoids, aroma compounds and amino acids. The targeted analysis leaded to the identification of 68 compounds, whose concentrations were significant different among the wines. The results were related to soils physical-chemical analysis and showed that: 1) high concentrations of flavan-3-ols and flavonols are correlated with high clay content in soils; 2) high concentrations of anthocyanins, amino acids, and aroma compounds are correlated with neutral and moderately alkaline soil pH; 3) low concentrations of flavonoids and aroma compounds are correlated with high soil organic matter content and acidic pH. The 1H-NMR metabolomic analysis proved to be an excellent tool to discriminate between wines originating from grapes grown on different soil types and revealed that soils in the Mediterranean area exert a strong impact on the chemical composition of the wines.

Botrytis cinerea is a necrotrophic pathogen that causes one of the most serious diseases of the grapevine (Vitis vinifera), grey mold or Botrytis bunch rot. In Champagne, the Botrytis cinerea disease leads to considerable economic losses for winemakers and wines exhibit organoleptic defaults.