A.O.C. taureau de Camargue

Marselan wines have an unusual high proportion of seed derived tannins from grapes having high proportions of skins, which are rich in tannins. But the causes behind this characteristic have not yet been identified. In vintage 2023 wines were made at experimental scale (9 kg by experimental unit) from Arinarnoa, Marselan and Tannat Vitis vinifera grape cultivars by traditional maceration, and by techniques aimed to increase the wine content in skin derived tannin: addition of extraction enzymes, addition at vatting of grape-skin enological tannins, or by extended maceration, known to increase the seed derived tannin contents of wines.

“The vine and the wine are great mysteries. Only the vine makes us intelligible what is the true flavor of the earth”. Colette. The notion of terroir has always been the basis of the notion of AOC from which it is inseparable. It is moreover the definition of the production zone which was at the start of the attempts to set up the designation of origin, at the beginning of the century, after the phylloxera crisis.

Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) constitute a diverse group of secondary metabolites key for the communication of plants with other organisms and for their adaptation to environmental and biotic stresses. The emission of these compounds through leaves is also affected by the interaction of plants with symbiotic microorganisms, arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) among them [1]. Our objective was to know the concentration and profile of VOCs emitted by the leaves of two grapevine varieties (Tempranillo, T, and Cabernet Sauvignon, CS, grafted onto R110 rootstocks), inoculated or not with a consortium of five AMF (Rhizophagus irregularis, Funneliformis mosseae, Septoglomus deserticola, Claroideoglomus claroideum and C. etunicatum).

During bottle aging, many thiol compounds are involved in the expression of bouquet of great aged red wines according to the quality of the closure.1,2 Identifying thiol compounds in red wines is a challenging task due several drawbacks including, the complexity of the matrix, the low concentration of these impact compounds and the amount of wine needed.3,4
This work aims to develop a new strategy based on the functionalisation of oak wood organic extracts with H₂S, to produce new thiols, in order to mimic what can happen in red wine during bottle aging. Following this approach and through sensory analysis experiments, we demonstrated that the vanilla-like aroma of fresh oak wood was transformed into intense “meaty” nuances similar to those found in old but non oxidized red wines.

Viticulture and grapevine breeding programs have to face and adapt to the rapidly changing growing conditions due to the ongoing climate change, the scarcity of resources and the demand for sustainability within the whole value chain of wine production. In times of highly effective and cost-efficient genotyping technologies routinely applied in plant research and breeding, the need for comparable high-speed and high-resolution phenotyping tools has increased substantially. The disciplines of grapevine research, breeding and precision viticulture picked up this demand – mostly independent from each other – by the development, validation and establishment of different sensor technologies in order to extend management strategies or to transform labor-intensive and expensive phenotyping.