NIR spectroscopy is a rapid, economic and not destructive technique employed in food analysis. Concerning fresh table grape, the analysis is usually limited to juices, homogenates or skin extracts which usually give better NIR prediction models. Scanning of intact berries is challenging since each berry has specific features (berry shape, presence of superficial pigmentation, etc.) and, moreover, there are punctual variations even within the same berry. It would be of great interest to obtain information about maturity parameters and consumer's appreciation directly from intact berries, since it would save both time and money. In this article, near infrared (NIR) spectroscopy and chemometric methods have been employed to search for a correlation between sensory analysis and analytical data. The research findings show how it is possible to use a rapid, economic and not destructive emerging technology such as NIR spectroscopy to understand consumer's preference directly from intact berries.

Grapevine ( Vitis vinifera L.) is importantly cultivated worldwide for table grape and wine production. Its cultivation requires irrigation supply, especially in arid and semiarid areas. Water deficiency can affect berry and wine quality mostly depending on the extent of plant perceived stress, which is a cultivar-specific trait. We tested the physiological and molecular responses to water deficiency of two table grape cultivars, Italia and Autumn royal, and we highlighted their different adaptation. Microarray analyses revealed that Autumn royal reacts involving only 29 genes, related to plant stress response and ABA/hormone signal transduction, to modulate the response to water deficit. Instead, cultivar Italia orchestrates a very broad response (we found 1037 differentially expressed genes) that modifies the cell wall organization, carbohydrate metabolism, response to reactive oxygen species, hormones and osmotic stress. For the first time, we integrated transcriptomic data with cultivar-specific genomics and found that ABA-perception and –signalling are key factors mediating the varietal-specific behaviour of the early response to drought. We were thus able to isolate candidate genes for the genotype-dependent response to drought. These insights will allow the identification of reliable plant stress indicators and the definition of sustainable cultivar-specific protocols for water management.

In the CREA-Viticoltura ed Enologia, Lab of Turi, during the last ten years, we started a breeding program for table grapes to obtain new seedless varieties, by using conventional breeding by crossings, and embryo rescue techniques. Other than seedlessness, additional targets for this breeding program are: the possibility of extending the harvesting period, the attitude to cold storage, transport and shelf-life, resistance to diseases both on the plant and in post-harvest conditions, the good productivity, the quality of the grapes, the easy cultivation management of the vineyard (reduced water, nutritional requirements, etc ...). More than 10.000 new genotypes have been obtained through the use of over 20 table grape varieties and more than 18 different crossing combinations. The following characteristics have been observed on these individuals for more than three years: berry color, length and weight cluster, average berry weight, sugars, pH, acidity, class of seedlessness, floral morphology, resistance to diseases. The results of these activities revealed that some combinations have better performance among all. In the near future, this activity will allow to focus on parental genotypes able to provide individuals with the best desired traits.

Grapevine requires irrigation supply for its cultivation, especially in the arid and semiarid geographic areas. As consequence of the severe climatic changes, water consumption is becoming more and more important as environmental and cost factor that needs to be reduced. Water deficiency can affect berry and wine quality depending on the extent of plant perceived stress, which is a cultivar specific trait. In a four-year project, we tested the physiological and molecular responses to water deficiency of two different table grape cultivars, Italia and Autumn Royal, and we highlighted that they differently adapted to drought stress conditions. Physiological analyses on field-growth plants showed cultivar-specific variations in photosynthetic carbon assimilation and, stomatal conductance under water deficiency. We further combined “omic” analyses to identify candidate genes involved in drought stress response and adaptative traits. Microarray analyses revealed a broad response of cultivar Italia to drought stress conditions characterized by the modulation of 1037 genes involved in biological processes as cell wall organization, carbohydrate metabolism, ROS response, response to hormone and osmotic stress. On the contrary, Autumn Royal response was limited to the modulation of only 29 genes mainly involved in plant stress response, nitrogen metabolism and hormone signal transduction. Our data highlighted that ABA-perception and –signalling are key factors mediating the varietal-specific behavior of the early response to drought.

The vertical transmission of viruses is an important phenomenon affecting a wide range of viruses and host plants. Nevertheless, the presence of virus in a seed does not always lead to seedling infection. In grapevine, seed transmission has been reported for many nepoviruses, but little is known about Leafroll, Rugose wood complex and Fleck diseases. Thus, the aim of this study is to monitor the virological condition of seedlings obtained by crosses between infected parents, analyzing the sanitary status of seedlings after the transfer in experimental fields. It was observed that, although the viral state of parents was quite compromised, viruses were not detected in any of the 150 progeny plants, demonstrating that the main grapevine viruses are at low risk for seed transmission.

Vitis vinifera L. varieties were spread through cuttings following historic migrations of people, trades, or after biological crises due to pests outbreaks. Some today's varieties could be more than a 1000 years old and, although over the centuries these varieties generated most of the remaining cultivars, their origin could be impossible to track back. The Italian grapevine biodiversity is one of most important, most likely due to its strategic position in the middle of the Mediterranean sea. Unravelling of its structure is challenging because of its complexity and the lack of historical documentation. In this paper molecular data are compared with historical documentations. Simple Sequence Repeats fingerprinting are molecular markers best suited to investigate genetic relationships and identify pedigrees. South-Italian germplasm was studied with 54 nuclear microsatellites. A family was identified, consisting of two parents and three siblings and further genetically characterized with six nuclear and five chloroplast microsatellites and described with ampelographic and phylometric analysis. Although these latter were not informative for the kinship identification. The common Bombino bianco was the female parent and the previously unknown Uva rosa antica was the male parent. Bombino nero, Impigno and the popular Uva di Troia, all typical of the south-east Italy, were the offspring. Further research showed that the Uva rosa antica was a synonym of Quagliano and Bouteillan noir, both minor varieties. Quagliano was considered to be autochthonous of some alpine valleys in the north-west of Italy and Bouteillan noir is a neglected variety of Vancluse in France. This finding uncovers the intricate nature of Italian grape cultivars, considered peculiar of an area, but possibly being the remains of ancient latin founding varieties. Consequently, intriguing new hypotheses are discussed and some conclusions are drawn, based on the peculiar geographical origin of the parents, on the distribution of the offspring, on the chance of a single, and perhaps intentional, crossing event.

To characterise 31 different Aglianico accessions randomly collected in Southern Italy, 30 ampelographic descriptors, 13 SSRs and 10 AFLP primer combinations were analysed. An appreciable variation of ampelographic descriptors was revealed mainly by mature leaf traits, while very few variations were recorded for shoot and berry traits. Similarly, all SSR loci revealed molecular monomorphism and AFLPs with a very high genetic similarity (Dice coefficient) among all the accessions considered. One of the aims of this study was to clarify the genetic assessment of Aglianico Nero and Aglianico del Vulture Nero, since they are registered as two different cultivars with distinct varietal codes at the Italian Register of Grape Varieties. Registered Aglianico Nero and Aglianico del Vulture Nero were included in the analyses, compared and used as reference material. Our plants showed that all the accessions tested, independent from the biotype, and the two registered cultivars belong to the same genotype, suggesting that, as reported by the Vitis International Variety Catalogue, a case of synonymy occurred between Aglianico Nero and Aglianico del Vulture Nero. These cultivars could therefore be considered as a single cultivar. Moreover, the AFLP data revealed a partial match between morphological and molecular data, showing that the AFLP molecular method was able to discriminate between different accessions belonging to the same cultivar.

Vine rootstocks are known to have an influence on the vegetative growth and yield of the scion, and also can influence fruit quality in grafted vines with direct effects on the uptake of water and mineral elements, or more indirectly by affecting the balance between fruit and shoot growth. The adaptability of rootstocks to restrictive soil conditions, water and nutrient supply is variable. The impact of different rootstocks on vine performance and scion could be useful information for selecting which rootstock is more suitable for the soils with reduced water availability. This study was conducted in 2013 on three Vitis vinifera L. cultivars ('Summer Royal', 'Crimson seedless' and 'Autumn Royal') grown in Apulia region (southern Italy) and planted in the same trial site. All vines were grafted onto two rootstocks ('140 Ru' and '34 EM') and subjected to two different irrigation practices under controlled water deficit, in order to study the effect of grafting and water deficit on the whole vine growth and productive development. In particular, vine performance was assessed throughout the season by determining the leaf water potential and, at harvest, the crop yield and both the organoleptic and nutritional (organic acids, carbohydrates, flavonoid and non-flavonoid phenolic compounds) grape quality. From the preliminary findings, we can conclude that physiological responses, such as water relations, of table grape vines could be influenced by the rootstock type, whilst metabolomic characterization of mature grapes suggest that the fruit quality was mainly dependent on the cultivar genotype, even though the different size-controlling rootstocks exerted a relevant influence, especially on vines under restricted water regime.

Abscisic acid (ABA) is associated with regulating plant adaptive responses to various environmental stresses. In particular, drought stress signals are transmitted through at least two pathways: one is abscisic acid (ABA)-dependent, and the other is ABA-independent. In the first case, drought stress increases the cellular ABA levels, which induces the expression of drought stress-responsive genes, such as 9-cis-epoxycarotenoid dioxygenase (NCED) and zeaxanthin epoxidase (ZEP). These genes belong to the carotenoid biosynthesis scenario. To date, most research of grapevines has focused on the physiological mechanisms of ABA during fruit ripening. Our interest is on studying the role of NCED and ZEP genes as candidate genes exhibiting up-regulation upon drought-stressed conditions. At the same time, several plant physiological parameters, such as leaf water status (?l), net assimilation rate (A), stomatal conductance (gs), transpiration rate (E), and soil water potential (?s), were monitored. To explain the complex molecular pattern undergoing these physiological changes, we investigated the levels of expression of one candidate gene encoding for VvNCED1. The results provided evidence of a different transcriptional pattern of the gene between the control and stressed plants, leading to a major accumulation of NCED1 transcripts in the stressed plants.

The aim of this study was to assess the influence of different winemaking technologies on the chemical characteristics and, in particular, on the phenolic fraction of Aglianico, Montepulciano, Nero di Troia and Sangiovese wines produced in Apulia, Southern Italy. Four different winemaking technologies were compared: control (traditional, 5 days of maceration at 25 °C with three daily punching-down), prolonged maceration (10 days), addition of ellagic tannins and cryomaceration (24 h at 5 °C using dry ice), without any other oenological treatment. Results showed that the different technologies slightly influenced the phenolic fraction of Aglianico, which is known to be naturally rich of phenols. On the contrary, the prolonged maceration led to an increase of total phenols (TP) in Nero di Troia (2,592 mg/kg vs. 2,115 mg/kg of control) and a decrease in Sangiovese (869 mg/kg vs. 1,013 mg/kg); the addition of tannins led to an increase of TP in Montepulciano (1,358 mg/kg vs. 1,216 mg/kg) and to a decrease in Sangiovese (916 mg/kg vs. 1,013 mg/kg); and cryomaceration led to a decrease of anthocyanins in all cultivars (about 15%). Phenols extraction from grapes was found to be mostly dependent on the grape variety rather than on the applied winemaking technology.

ABSTRACTThe quality loss of table grape (cv. Crimson seedless) packaged in different films was studied in order to appraise the effects induced by girdling technique combined with a gibberellins treatment on product storability. The cultural practices successfully enhanced the quality of the berries. From a packaging point of view, all the investigated films successfully preserved the quality of the packed fruit, with some relevant differences for the highest gas barrier films. A better score in the overall acceptability was for grape packaged in multi‐layer laminated nylon/polyolefin and biodegradable starch/polyester‐based films.PRACTICAL APPLICATIONSThe results obtained in this work can give a new contribution to the field by providing information on combined strategies to prolong the shelf life of ready‐to‐use table grape. The bio‐based packaging system exerted a very attractive performance, thus allowing proposing it as a potential alternative to petroleum source packaging.

Cell cultures obtained from Vitis vinifera cvs Michele Palieri and Red Globe were cultured in order to stimulate stilbene production. In the calli, stilbene production peaked at day 22 of culture for both cultivars; the main compound was trans-piceid, followed by cis-piceid. Methyl jasmonate, which was added to cell suspensions in the first half of the exponential growth phase, enhanced stilbene accumulation, producing mainly trans-piceid and epsilon-viniferin. Other stilbenoids, though in lower quantities, were identified by liquid chromatography/positive electrospray mass spectrometry. epsilon-Viniferin and trans-resveratrol were the main compounds released into the culture medium. The total quantity of stilbenes was genotype dependent, with a better response found for the cv Red Globe.

The influence of film barrier properties on the quality loss of minimally processed grapes stored at 5 °C was addressed. Table grapes (Vitis vinifera cv. Italia) differing in quantity and frequency of irrigation, were tested with five different packaging films. Two commercially available films were used: a multilayer film obtained by laminating nylon and a polyolefin layer (NP), an oriented polypropylene film (OPP), along with three biodegradable polyester-based films (NVT-100, NVT-50 and NVT-35). The packed grape quality during storage was determined by monitoring the headspace oxygen and carbon dioxide concentration, the grape sensory qualities, and the viable cell concentration of the following spoilage microorganisms: total viable bacterial count, lactic acid bacteria, yeasts and molds. All the investigated films successfully preserved the quality of packed produce for the entire observation period (35 d). However, the best results were obtained using high barrier films such as NP and NVT-100. Slight differences were recorded between the two sets of table grapes in terms of respiratory activity and sensory quality.

'Malvasia nera di Brindisi' and 'Malvasia nera di Lecce' are two Malvasias with black berries and belong to the Apulian (southern Italy) ampelographic platform. Their presumed synonymy has been recently confirmed by means of SSR markers. In the present work, we considered these two black Malvasias as a unique variety and named them as 'Malvasia nera di Brindisi/Lecce'. We demonstrated that this variety originated from the cross between 'Malvasia bianca lunga' or 'Malvasia del Chianti' and 'Negroamaro' using 34 nuclear SSR and two isoenzymatic markers. Both parents have belonged to the Apulian varietal resources for centuries. Now we may assert that 'Malvasia nera di Brindisi/Lecce' is likely born in Apulia, where it found a suitable environment for a successful cultivation.

The influence of both postharvest treatments and film permeability on the quality decay kinetics of freshly processed grapes was addressed. Ethanol, chlorinated water and hot water were tested to reduce microbiological spoilage. The treated grapes were packaged in two polyester-based biodegradable films (NVT1 and NVT2) and the composition of the atmosphere within the packages determined. A multilayer film, made by laminating an aluminium foil with a polyethylene film (aluminium) was used to evaluate separately the respiratory activity of the packed grapes, and the oxygen and carbon dioxide permeability coefficients of the investigated films under real working conditions. The quality decay kinetics of freshly processed table grapes packed at 5°C were assessed by monitoring the cell load of the main spoilage microorganisms (total mesophilic viable count, lactic acid bacteria, yeasts and moulds) and the product appearance for a period of about 30 days. Results suggest that ethanol was the most efficient treatment, as it successfully reduced the cell load of the spoilage microorganisms without affecting respiration of the packed food or its appearance. Differences between the investigated biodegradable films were not statistically significant.

'Malvasia nera di Brindisi' and 'Malvasia nera di Lecce' are two of the few Malvasias with black berries and belong to the Apulian ampelographic assortment (South Italy). Their presumed synonymy has been recently ascertained with SSR markers and therefore these two black 'Malvasias' can be considered as an unique variety. We discovered that this cultivar is the cross between 'Malvasia bianca lunga' alias 'Malvasia del Chianti' and 'Negroamaro' by using 42 nuclear SSR. Both parents belong to the Apulian varietal resources, since centuries. So far, 'Malvasia nera di Brindisi/Lecce' origin has been obscure; now we may assert that this cultivar was born right in Apulia. Three sets of chloroplast SSR loci were used to determine the female and the male parent: 6 ccmp loci, already used in previous pedigree studies, 15 ccSSR loci and 2 NTCP loci, derived from tobacco. The second set of loci was sequenced in order to compare the length of the markers with the reference species where they were originally obtained: in 4 cases no microsatellite motives were detected and in other 4 cases the perfect repetition found in tobacco was not maintained in grape. Unfortunately, the three sets of markers failed to show any polymorphism. A detailed comparison of the black Malvasia morphology with its two parents showed a closer similarity to 'Negroamaro'. Also the anthocyanin profile is in agreement with that of the black parent; its varietal aroma presents interesting levels of free and bound 2-phenylethanol, responsible for rose flavor, and of bound linalool compounds.

Previously believed to be distinct cultivars Malvasia delle Lipari, Malvasia di Sardegna, Greco di Gerace (Italy), Malvasia de Sitges (Spain) and Malvasia dubrovacka (Croatia) displayed an identical molecular profile when analyzed by 15 SSR markers. Ampelographic comparison supports the genetic analysis indicating that they are all the same variety; they do not differ in any important morphological trait. This genotype is scattered all over the Mediterranean area and as far as the Canaries and Madeira. Historical investigation indicates that the genotype has been imported from Greece. However, so far, the search in Greek databases has produced no useful results to confirm this theory. Allele frequency comparison among cultivars from Greece, Croatia, Italy, Spain and Portugal showed that none of these countries can be pinpointed as the ‘home country’ of this genotype.