Interest in measuring the grape texture to characterise grapes from different cultivation areas – Example of Cabernet franc from the Loire Valley

The professional winegrower usually selects the harvest date considering several elements, such as the vine stem and berry colour, the flavour, appearance and grain elasticity. Nowadays these elements have turned old fashioned.

The available plant diversity is maintained in global genetic collections and germplasm banks. One of the main objectives of the study of the genetic material of vine still conducting research to characterize the genotypes and the creation of new varieties. The main ampelographic collection of the country, the largest in the Balkans, is located at the Athens Vine Institute in Lykovrisi, Attica, in an area of 70 acres. It contains more than 800 varieties, most of which are indigenous. The Institute is conducting research on the genetic improvement of native varieties and the creation new winemaking and table grape varieties of high productivity, grape quality, resistance to fungal diseases and their adaptability to stresses using the hybridization method using European high-quality varieties.

“Pinking” is a term used to define an abnormal pink coloration assumed by white wines in certain cases. Despite the are many hypotheses about the causes of this phenomenon, pinking still represents an issue for the wine industry. In the absence of reliable preventive strategies, wineries often rely on treatments such as charcoal fining, which is also negatively impacting wine aroma. This study aims at evaluating the potential of different fining agents based on animal or vegetal proteins to prevent wine pinking when applied at the level of must clarification. The work was carried out on Lugana wines, which is well-recognised as sensible to pinking problems. METHODS: Two experimental Lugana musts were obtained by applying a standard winemaking protocol and were then clarified with different commercial preparations based on vegetal proteins or casein, alone or in combination with PVPP. A control only using pectolytic enzyme was also prepared. Finings were carried out at 4°C for 16h, and the clear must (200 NTU) was then fermented in controlled conditions.

Glutathione is a tripeptide that is mainly found in reduced form in grapes. It generates during the maturation of the grape, increasing significantly after veraison [1].

As six on the nine planetary boundaries have already been crossed, putting our safe life on Earth at risk (Rockström et al., 2024) and agriculture is significantly responsible for it (Campbell et al., 2017), viticulture, faces the challenge of reducing its environmental impacts through fundamental changes to its practices.