Comportement hydrique des sols viticoles et leur influence sur le terroir

Wine lees represent an abundant yet largely undervalorised by-product of the winemaking industry.

In the actual scenario of climate change, optimization of water usage is becoming critical in sustainable viticulture. Most of the current approaches to assess grapevine water status and drive irrigation scheduling are either destructive, time and labour consuming and monitor a small, limited number of plants. This work presents a novel methodology using a contactless, miniaturized, low-cost NIR spectrometer to monitor the vineyard water status variability from a moving vehicle, to provide reliable information towards precision irrigation.

Bois noir is the most widespread phytoplasma grapevine disease in Europe. It is associated with ‘Candidatus Phytoplasma solani’. In symptomatic grapevines cv. ‘Zweigelt’ infected with ‘Ca. P. solani’ compared with uninfected grapevines, metabolic pathways associated with phosphorylated sugar production were induced both at the transcriptional level and at the level of activity of the corresponding enzymes (Dermastia et al., 2021, Int. J. Mol. Sci. 22: 3531). In particular, the expression of gene coding for phosphoglucoisomerase was upregulated, resulting in increased phosphoglucoisomerase enzyme activity.

The strategy for sustainability in the wine sector of the EU refers to a set of practices and principles that aim to minimize the negative impact of wine production on the environment, social and economic sustainability. Sustainable wine production involves a range of practices that are designed to reduce waste, conserve resources, and promote the well-being of workers and communities.

Climate change is causing a gap between the technological and phenolic maturity of grapes, resulting in wines with high alcohol content and low polyphenol concentration. Another phenomenon associated with high temperatures and whose effect is more pronounced if the harvest is delayed is the decrease in the acidity of the grapes, mainly in malic acid, and an increase in pH caused by the accumulation of potassium derived from the increase in temperature. Therefore, climate change and the effects it causes on the vine leads to unbalanced wines, with high alcohol content and lack of color, with green tannins, astringency and excessively low acidity if not corrected.