Page 50 - Grapevine NovDec 2021

Around The Vineyard

said a major challenge for vineyards is mitigating The major compounds affecting the quality of
the impacts of these climate changes. In particular, grapes and wines are aromas and phenolics. As
how do grapevines respond to extreme heat and most of these compounds are synthesized in the
drought, and what can be done about this in the berry’s skin, their concentration can be affected
vineyard? when the size of the berry is reduced or increased
through irrigation management.
Biological Mechanisms that Determine
Grape and Wine Quality Improving Berry Quality
by Reducing Berry Size
Castellarin opened his presentation by comment-
ing on how studies show that drought events affect Smaller berries tend to have a higher concentra-
grapevine physiology by limiting transpiration, pho- tion of aromas and phenolics because they are syn-
tosynthesis, canopy, berry growth and yield, as well thesized in the skin. Less flesh, and the water pro-
as impacting fruit composition. In particular, the duces a higher concentration of these com-pounds.
topic of managing drought in vineyards has been By increasing the amount of water in the flesh, the
investigated for many years and has always been water dilutes these compounds. The addition of
a hot topic. “We know we need water to manage water can occur via irrigation or high precipitations.
grape production. But we also know that we have
to treat water carefully because by applying water, Castellarin cited studies that show that by apply-
we might affect the quality of the grapes and also ing some level of deficit before variation, after
the quality of the wine. So we want to optimize the operation, or prolonged levels of deficits during the
use of water in vineyards to optimize the quality of season, growers decreased their yield but increased
fruit and wine,” he said. the concentration of total phenols.

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