Discriminant value of soil properties for terroir zoning

In this video recording of the IVES science meeting 2023, Fernando Zamora (Department of biochemistry and biotechnology, Faculty of oenology, Universitat Rovira i Virgili, Spain) speaks about the effects of using cationic exchange for reducing pH on the composition and quality of sparkling wine. This presentation is based on an original article accessible for free on OENO One.

Anthocyanins are responsible for the red wine color and their ability to condense with tannins is considered as a contributor in astringency reduction. However, recent studies showed the possibility of anthocyanins to influence directly the in-mouth perception of wines.

Excessive fertilization of the vineyard leads to low quality grapes, increased costs and a negative impact on the environment. In order to establish an integrated management system aimed at a sustainable fertilization of the vineyards, nutritional reference levels were established. For this purpose, 30 representative vineyards of the Albariño variety were studied, in which soil and petiole analyses were carried out for two years and grape yield and quality at harvest were measured. In both years of study, soil pH, calcium, sodium and cation exchange capacity were positively correlated with calcium content and negatively correlated with manganese in grapes. Irrigated vineyards had higher levels of aluminium in soil and lower levels of calcium in petiole. Climatic conditions were very different in the years of the study. The year 2019 was colder than usual, in 2020 there was a marked water stress with high summer temperatures. This resulted in medium-high acidity in grapes in 2019 and low acidity in 2020, with sugar levels being similar both years. A very marked decrease in must amino nitrogen was observed in 2020, with ammonia nitrogen remaining stable. The correlation of acidity and sugar values in grapes with soil and petiole analysis data made it possible to establish reference levels for the nutritional diagnosis of the Albariño variety in this region. Based on these results, an easy-to-use TIC application is currently being created for grapegrowers, aimed at improving the sustainability of the vineyard through reasoned fertilization. This study has now been extended to other Galician vine varieties.

Previous work from our laboratory has shown that both a purified toasted oak powder and extracts made from unoaked and oaked red wines influenced physiological parameters, metabolism and hepatic gene expression in high-fat fed C57/BL6J male mice (Luo et al., 2020).  Impacted pathways included glucose metabolism, liver fat accumulation, markers of chronic inflammation, and expression of the Gsta1 mRNA.  

Some red wines develop a “bouquet” during ageing. This complex aroma is linked to quality by wine tasters1. The presence of dimethylsulfide (DMS) in those wines is implicated