Takeaways from the April Webinar: Soft, Sweet and Colorful
In April, speakers Esther
Hernández Montes of Polytechnic
University of Madrid, Spain; Ben-Min Chang of
Agriculture and Agri-Food in Canada; Markus
Keller of Washington State University, Prosser;
Nataliya Shcherbatyuk of Washington State
University, Prosser; and Yun Zhang of Ste.
Michelle Wine Estates in Washington presented their paper on
“Soft,
Sweet and Colorful: Stratified Sampling Reveals Sequence of
Events at the Onset of Grape Ripening.” Key findings include:
- Individual berries within a cluster ripen at different times and have different chemical and physical properties at each stage of ripening.
- The current approach of lumping all berries of the same cluster together during analysis overlooks important details of the ripening process.
- The term “veraison” may not be suitable for describing individual berries, as multiple changes are occurring at different times. It is more appropriate to use the term for the overall population of berries in a vineyard.
- The research was conducted by a diverse team from different countries, reflecting the global nature of viticulture and the collaboration happening in the wine industry.
Dr. Markus Keller noted during the Q&A session, “One thing that I find exciting about this paper, is there are five authors and each one of us has a different accent. We are from five different countries and did the actual study in America, even though none of us were born in the U.S., which reflects the diversity we now have at ASEV and also in the world of viticulture.”
Join us for future webinars. For more information about this month’s webinar, visit the webinar page.
