The Soil Component of Terroir

The European Landscape Convention (ELC, 2001) defined the landscape as the “part of a territory as perceived by the population and resulting from the action of natural and/or human factors and their interrelationships”. Wine landscapes, protected or not under figures such as cultural landscapes or Cultural heritage, are a clear demonstration of this definition, denoting the interrelationships of the natural environment and the action of the human, which modulates the territory to give the different wine landscapes. This work was focused on the study of the effect of the human factors linked to the cultivation of the vine on the modification of the landscape.

Oloroso Sherry is a typical fortified wine from Jerez de la Frontera (south of Spain). It is one of the most used in the seasoning of oak barrels, called Sherry Cask, destined in this area for ageing brandies or condiments as wine vinegars. Brandy de Jerez is an European Geographical Indication for grape-derived spirits. Its special organoleptic characteristics are due to its traditional dynamic ageing in Sherry Casks. American oak is the most common wood employed in Jerez area, where Brandy de Jerez is exclusively manufactured. During ageing period of Sherry and brandies, the wood is not only a container, it is involved in several physicochemical process with the Sherry or the distillate. Oak wood is the responsible of the presence of many compounds in the products, affecting their aroma and chemical composition and having a high influence in their final quality. Moreover, the seasoned wood with Sherry wine could transfer the compounds from wine into the brandy, improving its aroma and flavor.

Wine yeast strains Saccharomyces ellipsoideus have important applications in food industry and in this regard is sought isolation as pure cultures and selecting those strains, which in laboratory investigations which have great biotechnological properties This study was intended as the ratio of live cells and autolysates cells also the influence of culture medium on this report. Yeasts selected for this study were isolated from industrial strains of indigenous grape varieties, namely: Feteasca Royal (FR) Feteasca White (FA), black Feteasca (FN), Romanian Tamaioasa (TR), Babeasca Black (BN) and Cotnari Grasa (GC).

The production of grapes with a balanced composition is one of the main goals that agronomists and oenologists pursue to produce premium quality wines.

Vine diseases have a strong impact on vineyards sustainability, which in turns leads to strong economic consequences. Among those diseases, Flavescence dorée spreads quickly and is incurable, which led in France to the setup of a mandatory pest control implying the systematic use of pesticides and the prospection and uprooting of every infected plants. Remote sensing could be a very powerful tool to optimize prospection as it allows to produce quickly accurate maps over large areas. Recent studies have shown that high spatial resolution (10cm/pixel) multispectral images acquired from UAVs allow to map Flavescence dorée in vineyards using leaves discolorations [e.g. Albetis et al., Remote Sensing, 2017].