Impact of foliar symptoms of "Esca proper" on proteins related to defense and oxidative stress of grape skins during ripening.

Esca is one of the major diseases affecting vineyards with direct impact on product yield; nevertheless, scientific studies concerning its impact on grape quality are scarce. As an attempt to better understand the mechanisms behind "Esca proper" development in grapes, this work focused on the identification of proteins whose expression is altered by the disease. 2-DEs were performed on protein extracts from grape skins at different stages of maturity for two consecutive vintages. Grapes were collected in 2009 and in 2010 from plants that did not present signs of infection by Esca proper since the 2004 vintage and from plants that presented cast leaf symptoms at least once since 2004. For the first time, 13 proteins were shown to be influenced by Esca proper during the ripening process. Extensive bioinformatics analysis allowed the grouping of proteins involved in (i) stress tolerance and defense response, (ii) oxidative phosphorylation, (iii) oxidation-reduction processes in mitochondria, and (iv) oxidation-reduction processes in chloroplasts. Of these 13 proteins, cysteine synthase is the only one implicated in a metabolic pathway of oenological interest. This study shows how foliar symptoms of Esca proper may impact stress-related pathways in grapes, which are characterized by modifications in the chain of oxidative phosphorylation and redox scavenging.

Potential Contribution of Climate Change to the Protein Haze of White Wines from the French Southwest Region.

The aim of this study was to evaluate the role played by climatic conditions during grape ripening in the protein instability of white wines produced in the French southwest region. For this purpose, basic wine analyses were carried out on 268 musts and the corresponding wines, all produced during the 2016, 2017, 2018, and 2019 vintages, with distinctive climatic conditions. Qualitative and quantitative variables were correlated with levels of protein haze determined by heat test (80 °C/2 h) in the wines using analysis of covariance (ANCOVA), principal component analysis (PCA), and classification and regression trees (CART). Our results show that the climatic change, with the increase in temperatures, and the decrease in precipitation during the grape ripening phase, tends to enhance the risk of protein instability in wines. Indeed, the values of pH, titratable acidity, and malic acid concentrations of the musts, which are good indicators of the conditions in which the grapes ripened and of the level of ripeness of the grapes, were also the variables that correlated best with the protein haze. By measuring these parameters at harvest before alcoholic fermentation, it may be possible to predict the risk of protein haze, and thus early and precisely adapt the stabilization treatment to be applied.

Investigating the Aroma of Syrah Wines from the Northern Rhone Valley Using Supercritical CO2-Dearomatized Wine as a Matrix for Reconstitution Studies.

This study aimed to investigate the key compounds involved in the aroma of French Syrah wines from the northern Rhone valley from two vintages characterized by distinct climatic conditions. The volatile composition of the wines was assessed through the determination of 76 molecules. After identifying the best matrix and best model for aroma reconstitution studies, omission tests were conducted using the Pivot profile method. For both vintages, 35 molecules with odor activity values (OAVs) above 0.5 were identified. While remarkably high levels of 2-furfurylthiol (FFT) were reported in both wines, rotundone and 3-sulfanylhexanol (3SH) enabled the strongest discrimination between the two wines. Wine dearomatized using supercritical carbon dioxide (sCO2) was identified as the best matrix. The best models built using this matrix were composed of molecules with OAV > 5 and OAV > 10 highlighting that this dearomatization approach can be valuable to reconstitute the aroma of wine using a small number of molecules. For the cool vintage wine, the omission of rotundone and FFT had the greatest impact on the olfactive profile for nonanosmic and anosmic respondents to rotundone, respectively. 3SH, whose omission decreased the rating of the "fruity" attribute, was identified as the main contributor to the aroma of Syrah wine produced in the warm vintage.