The Soil Component of Terroir

Berry texture and berry skin mechanical properties have high agronomic importance, related to quality and marketing requirements of wine, table and raisin grapes.

Grapevine downy mildew, caused by the oomycete Plasmopara viticola, is responsible for significant economic losses each year and for a large proportion of the fungicides used in viticulture.

Context and purpose of the study. Climate changes pose the need to develop new grapevine varieties and rootstocks that are more tolerant to stress and diseases.

Climate change impacts grape production worldwide and in California drought and salinity became increasingly challenging for grape growers to maintain sustainable production and fruit quality.

Champagne wines are produced via a two-step process: the first is an initial alcoholic fermentation of grape must that produces a still base wine, followed by a second fermentation in bottle – the prise de mousse – that produces the effervescence. This appellation produces non-vintage sparkling wines composed of still base wines assembled from different vintages, varieties, and regions. These base wines, or “reserve wines,” are typically conserved on their fine lies and used to compensate for quality variance between vintages (1). Continuously blending small amounts of these reserve wines into newer ones also facilitates preserving the producer’s “house style.”