May lactic acid bacteria play an important role in sparkling wine elaboration?

Il mondo del vino si è accorto che per la sua comprensione, valorizzazione e promozione è fondamentale conoscere le ragioni geologiche del vino, valutare il suo impatto sul paesaggio e acquisire il suo valore emozionale.

Grapevine (Vitis spp.) is a globally significant fruit crop, and enhancing its agronomic and oenological traits is crucial to meet changing agricultural conditions and consumer demands. Conventional breeding has played a key role in domesticating grapevine varieties, but it is a time-consuming process to develop new cultivars with desirable traits for cultivation.
New plant breeding techniques (NpBTs) offer a potential revolution in grapevine cultivation, and genome editing has shown promise for targeted mutagenesis. The success of these biotechnological approaches relies on efficient in vitro regeneration protocols, particularly through somatic embryogenesis (SE).

The postharvest dehydration of grapes is a traditional practice to obtain wines with unique traits (e.g. sweet, dry/reinforced). The modern facilities (dehydrating rooms) used for this purpose are equipped with systems for artificially controlling the inside environment parameters, to obtain the desired dehydration kinetic and preserve the grapes from grey mold (Botrytis cinerea) infection, However, the conditioning systems are extremely energy-demanding and the identification and practical applications of solutions effective in controlling/reducing the postharvest decay would reduce the costs of the operation of the dehydration facilities. To this end, we explored the potential of ozone-based treatments on harvested grapes and preliminarily tested if the treatment could impact the normal behavior and metabolism of grapes during the traditionally slow dehydration practice.

New and developing technologies, that provide sensors and the software systems for using and interpreting them, are becoming pervasive through our lives and society. From smart phones to cars to farm machinery, all contain a range of sensors that are monitored automatically with intelligent software, providing us with the information we need, when we need it. This technological revolution has the potential to monitor all aspects of vineyard activity, assisting growers to make the management choices they need to achieve the outcomes they want. For example, a future vineyard may possess automated imaging that generates a three dimensional model of the vine canopy, highlighting differences from the desired structure and how to use canopy management to improve fruit composition, or generates maps with yield estimates and measurements of berry composition throughout the growing season.

The climate change is afecting particulary to the South of Spain, with high temperatures. It is important to develop new strategies in order to mantain the quality of wines