“Côtes du Rhône”, like many other controlled appellation wine, represents high stakes in the economical, social cultural and historical domains. The scenery formed by vineyards reveals these cultural values. It offers by a pleasant and appealing environment for the inhabitants and the tourists. It is also a powerful marketing tool for the winemakers.
Parallèlement à la connaissance des aptitudes viticoles, le terroir témoigne d’une identité locale, d’une spécificité des conditions de productions et d’une originalité des lieux.
The interaction between wine and landscapes is of an unsuspected richness. On the one side, the vineyards form part of the landscapes which they model. On the other side, the wines are related in their perception to the image of a region, a landscape and are at the origin of a cultural richness.
The communication of the aims of a viticulture under the premise of terroir is presently discussed in a lot of wine-growing regions around the world. To encourage this discussion the differences in knowledge, understanding, and preference concerning wine and landscape should be regarded more closely: the wine should be perceived as a representative of its region and one of the most characteristic features of a region is the landscape.
When someone watches a hilly landscape, the image beauty creates emotions and frames of mind not easily forgettable, but sometimes man’s intervention by means of soil movement and reduction of the natural biodiversity can significantly modify the landscape and consequently the above-mentioned emotions. One speculates if sensory appreciation of a wine may be strongly affected by psychological factor: landscape beauty.
The region with Origin Indication Vale dos Vinhedos (IPVV) is located in the cities of Bento Gonçalves, Garibaldi and Monte Belo do Sul. It was established in November 2002, through an act of Instituto Nacional de Propriedade Industrial, according to Resolução INPI Nº. 75, of 2000, and Law Nº. 9.279 of 1996. The changes on the grape growing and wine making in the last 15 years, with the expansion of grapevines Vitis viníferas cultivation, the installation of several modern family wine companies, making wine with competitive quality, among other aspects, have enabled the implementation of concepts of Geographical Indications.
This experiment tries to characterize the role of soil, climate and harvest date on the composition of grape-derivated thiols, 3-mercapto-hexanol (3MH) and 3-mercapto-hexile acetate (A3MH), in the white wines from Colombard varieties in Gascony (South-West of France). A network of 6 plots has been observed since 1999 on different pedologic units. The plots have common agronomical characteristics, plantation spacing (2,900 to 3,500 vines per ha), plantation aging (1985-1990), strength conferred by rootstock (SO4, RSB), soil management (grass covered 1 by 2) and training system (vertical shoot positionning pruned in single Guyot). Meteorological stations are located near the plots.
Quantity and quality of flavonoïds in grape berries are important parts of their global quality. Several studies had shown that tannins are responsible for some major flavour properties of red wines such as colour, bitterness and astringency. Nevertheless, their synthesis and properties are still misunderstood. Some studies had suggested that the tannic pool was set before veraison. Thus, the comprehension of the relations between environment and setting of this tannic pool, up to the harvest, is not sufficient.
The reality of terroir is reflected by the typicality that it confers on the wine. The relationship between the origin of wine and its quality did already exist before the appearance of œnological science. Producers and merchants have always tried to improve wine quality in order to satisfy their clients.
Yeast, bacteria, species and strains play a key role in the winemaking process by producing metabolites which determine the sensorial qualities of wine. Therefore microbial population numeration, species identification and strains discrimination from berry surface at harvest to storage in bottle are fundamental.
The aim of the present work was to investigate Sauternes wines aromas. The flavor profiles of two wines (vintages 2002 and 2003) were investigated. Key-odorants have been determined by AEDA applied to Amberlite XAD-2 resin extracts. Various complementary techniques were used to identify the compounds (pHMB extraction, chemical synthesis of non-commercial standards, co-injections on two capillary columns, odor description at the sniffing port, GC-MS and GC-PFPD).
The trial was conducted in variety/rootstock Riesling/Kober 5 BB in the vineyard district of Vrsac. The vineyard was planted in 1996 on a south-facing slope, with rectangular type pruning of 3×1 m. The training system is of symmetric cordon type and mixed type pruning is practiced.
Marsannay est l’appellation la plus septentrionale de la Côte de Nuits, à la limite Sud de Dijon. Elle regroupe trois villages, Chenôve, Marsannay-la-Côte et Couchey, et constitue l’appellation la plus vaste de la Côte de Nuits avec 315 hectares en A.O.C. Elle possède uniquement des niveaux d’appellations régionales et communales depuis 1987.
Notre objectif est d’étudier de façon précise les relations entre la physiologie de la vigne et le sol, en prenant en compte l’effet millésime. Nous avons plus précisément étudier la précocité de débourrement de la vigne (stade D) en fonction de la texture du sol et plus particulièrement de la teneur en éléments grossiers.
The combination of cover crops with regulated deficit irrigation has been lately shown to be a good method to improve harvest quality in irrigated vineyards of Southern Europe with semiarid climate, as an alternative to the conventional management, that consists on mechanical tillage and irrigation from fruitset to veraison and from then on reduced, or even ended.
The concept of terroir is defined by a set of natural and human factors. On the slopy vineyards of the Burgundian « Côte », the « Appellations d’Origine Contrôlée (AOC) » spread out according to the slope in their order of quality : « AOC Grand Cru » at the top, « AOC Premier Cru » and « AOC Village » and « Bourgogne » on the piemont. In order to correlate the hierarchy of the vintages with the evolution of the topographic and pedological criteria, two toposequences were studied, in Gevrey Chambertin (« Côte de Nuits ») and Aloxe Corton (« Côte de Beaune »).
In the Burgundy vineyard, frequent tractor traffic and management of inter-rows alternating grass cover and chemical weed-control lead to structural soil contrast between row and inter-row. The aim of this study was to characterize and model water flow in relation with topsoil structure modifications induced by these practices. Void ratio of the different soil volumes were determined using bulk density measurements.
Environmental analysis (climate, vegetation, geomorfoloy-lanscape, lithology and soil) and its integration in a quality index taking the Appellation of Origin as the sole universe are used as general methodology for terroir zoning in Spain (Sotés and Gómez-Miguel, 1986-2005). This methodology is also applied to specific aspects of different Spanish Appellations of Origin (size, distribution and landscape peculiarities and vine occupation index).