Login

Proceedings

Find matching any: Reset
Add filter to result:
Site-Specific Variability Of Grape Composition And Wine Quality
1S. Fountas, 1Y. Kotseridis, 1A. Balafoutis, 2E. Anastasiou, 3S. Koundouras, 1S. Kallithraka, 4M. Kyraleou
1. Agricultural University of Athens, Greece
2. Institute of Research and Technology, Thessaly, Greece
3. Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece
4. Agricultural University of Athens
Precision Viticulture (PV) is the application of site-specific tools to delineate management zones in vineyards for either targeting inputs or harvesting blocks according to grape maturity status. For the creation of management zones, soil properties, topography, canopy characteristics and grape yield are commonly measured during the growing season. The majority of PV studies in winegrapes have focused on the relation of soil and vine-related spatial data with grape composition at harvest. However, the inclusion of site-specific wine quality data are very rare in literature, even though grape quality is ultimately judged upon wine properties. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of the variability in soil and vine properties on both grape composition and wine quality. The study was conducted in a commercial vineyard in the Nemea area, Southern Greece, during the 2013 season. The vineyard was planted with Vitis vinifera cv. Agiorgitiko, a Greek variety for red wine production. The vines were trained to a bilateral cordon and were spaced 1.0 x 2.5 m. An elevation map of the field was prepared using RTK-GPS (Ag-GPS 252, Trimble Ltd.,USA). Apparent electrical conductivity (ECa) measurements gave a first assessment of soil variability using an EM-38 probe (EM38 RT, Geonics LTD, Ontario Canada). Canopy properties (NDVI) were measured at veraison using a Crop Circle sensor (ACS-210, Holland Scientific Inc., Lincoln, NE, USA). The vineyard was sectioned in 21 cells, sized 300 m2. Grape harvesting was performed manually in September 2013 and grapes were placed in bins. All bins were geo-referenced when full using a balance and a GPS antenna. Berries from each cell were sampled from veraison through harvest and were analyzed for total soluble solids, pH, titratable acidity, anthocyanins and total phenolic compounds. At harvest, the production of each cell was destemmed, crushed and vinified separately applying classic red winemaking procedures. The final wines were analyzed for alcohol content, pH, titratable acidity, colour density and hue. Yield and berry weight showed a two-fold variation within the vineyard but only berry weight was correlated strongly with ECa and NDVI, with higher values in the lowest part of the slope. Among grape composition parameters, anthocyanins and total phenolic compounds showed the highest variability ranging from 0.39 to 1.80 mg/g and 0.74 to 2.33 au (absorption units) per g of fresh berry weight, respectively at harvest, and were negatively correlated with ECa. On the contrary, juice brix and acidity were not related to ECa and NDVI but maintained a consistent spatial pattern throughout ripening. Yield variations were not associated with any of grape and wine parameters except for a strong negative correlation with pH. Alcohol content of the wines produced from each vineyard cell ranged from 10.7 to 13.5 % v/v while pH ranged from 3.40 to 3.87 and titratable acidity from 4.7 to 5.6 g/L (expressed as tartaric acid). Among wine composition parameters, only pH showed a similar spatial pattern between berry and wine composition. Variations in wine pH were also mostly responsible for the variation in wine colour density and hue. This study indicated the necessity to evaluate wine quality spatial data alongside grape yield and composition in PV studies.
 
Keyword: precision viticulture