Vine-growing zoning of the municipal territories of Ronda and Arriate (Malaga, Spain), « Sierras de Málaga » registered appellation of origin mark

Sun exposure is needed for balanced grape ripening and sugar accumulation but is also one of the main drivers for a premature Riesling ageing

The biodiversity of cultivated vines has been significantly reduced due to a series of factors that have favoured the cultivation of a limited number of varieties and clones over time. In veneto, since 1980, a series of important actions have been implemented to counter this process. These actions have focused on the conservation of germplasm identified in the territory and the recovery of varieties historically present in the region, which were in danger of being abandoned and disappearing.

The use of new technologies such as microwaves (MW) arose in recent years as an efficient alternative to reduce the use of sulfur dioxide (SO2) and as a method for improving wines in terms of color and aroma [1, 2]. MW (non-ionizing electromagnetic waves with frequencies between 300 MHz and 300 GHz) have been widely applied in the food industry in order to reduce processing time and favor food preservation.

Following anecdotal evidence of unwanted ‘tropical’ character in red wines resulting from vineyard interventions and a subsequent yeast trial observing higher ‘red fruit’ character correlated with higher thiol concentrations, the role of polyfunctional thiols in commercial Australian red wines was investigated.
First, trials into the known tropical thiol modulation technique of foliar applications of sulfur and urea were conducted in parallel on Chardonnay and Shiraz.1 The Chardonnay wines showed expected results with elevated concentrations of 3-sulfanylhexanol (3-SH) and 3-sulfanylhexyl acetate (3-SHA), whereas the Shiraz wines lacked 3-SHA. Furthermore, the Shiraz wines were described as ‘drain’ (known as ‘reductive’ aroma character) during sensory evaluation although they did not contain thiols traditionally associated with ‘reductive’ thiols (H2S, methanethiol etc.).

Initiatives have been ongoing in recent years to safeguard biodiversity in the oenological sector via a process of enhancement of ancient varieties, under a pressure of a market strongly oriented towards production deriving from native vines of specific geographical zones. In that sense, Aosta Valley
(Italy) has raised the need to preserve and characterize its minority vine varieties which have the potentiality to give varietal wines. Fumin represents the 7% of the production of the region with 16 hectares of vineyards and 753 hectolitres of derived wine. Due to its large phenolic potential, strong astringency and deep colour, it has long been, and is still today, assembled or blended with other varieties as occurs, for example, for the Torrette.