The American Society for Enology and Viticulture (ASEV) has announced the 2013 best enology and viticulture papers, with the awards generously sponsored by J. Lohr Vineyards & Wines. The honored researchers will be recognized at the Society’s National Conference on June 24-28, 2013, in Monterey, California.

The best viticulture paper is awarded to researchers Yi Zhang and Imed Dami of Ohio State University for their paper titled, “Foliar Application of Abscisic Acid Increases Freezing Tolerance of Field-Grown Vitis vinifera Cabernet franc Grapevines.”

For enology, the paper “Profiling the Yeast Communities of Wine Fermentations Using Terminal Restriction Fragment Length Polymorphism Analysis” was selected for the top honor. Authors Nicholas Bokulich, Chin-Feng Hwang, Shuwen Liu, Kyria Boundy-Mills and David Mills primarily conducted their research at the University of California, Davis.

“It is no easy task to select just two papers from the dozens published quarterly in the AJEV. The level of science, research and writing is universally excellent, but ultimately our committee agreed that these two papers merited special attention,” said Lise Asimont of Francis Ford Coppola Presents, who is also the Best Paper Awards Committee chair and an ASEV Board member.

Each year, the ASEV Best Paper Awards Committee evaluates all manuscripts published in the AJEV during the previous year and selects one paper in viticulture and one in enology that reflects outstanding research and a substantial contribution to the field. In addition to Committee Chair Lise Asimont; the 2013 enology committee members include: Torey Arvik of Sonomaceuticals; Nichola Hall of Scott Laboratories; Evan Schiff of Francis Ford Coppola Presents and Brent Trela of Texas Tech University, Lubbock. The viticulture committee members include: Mark Greenspan of Advance Viticulture; Merilark Padgett-Johnson of Santa Rosa Junior College; and Luis Sanchez of E&J Gallo. The authors will be presented with a plaque and monetary award at the June 2013 ASEV National Conference.

Both best papers are currently highlighted at www.ajevonline.org and are available free of charge.