Nowadays, fungal diseases are one of the main phytosanitary problems that affect crops worldwide. Wine industry represents an important part of both agriculture and food industry. Spain, France, and Italy represent alone a total of 32% of world vineyard surface area, being within the top 5 world producers of grapes in 2018 [ES (40.9 million hectolitres (mhl), 15%) FR (46.4 mhl, 17%) IT (48.5 mhl, 18%) AR (14.5 mhl, 5%)]. Such trends are being consolidated and increasing production during the last 20 years. Besides, global export market is ruled by EU countries in terms of mhl (ES, FR, IT represent a 55% of total) and millions of € (FR & IT represent a 49% of total). Most of the strategies used to control fungal infection have been based on application of synthetic organic fungicides or Cu-based fungicides that lead to excess copper (Cu) availability in vineyards as a consequence of decades of use. Nowadays, application rates of Cu in organic agriculture are limited to levels which do not increase baseline soil test values for Cu over a timeframe. Nevertheless, these strategies have become less effective and more restricted due to appearance of highly resistant isolates, and to negative environmental effects that derive from repetitive and sometimes indiscriminate use of these products. There is an increasing demand for environmentally safe agrochemicals generated by alternative agriculture systems that promote sustainable and healthy production of foods. This situation has stimulated development of research orientated to provide alternative control strategies, e.g. the use of plant extracts as a source of secondary metabolites or use of other environmentally friendly substances that alleviate plant stresses and are growth promotors, named in EU as Plant Protection Products (PPPs).
Besides, the consolidation of wine production internationalization, required by consumers and citizens which are better informed and having new demands, require the producers to change production styles. Society tries to reach a lifestyle less subordinate to technology, chemistry, consumerism and fast pace. However, the manual processing and almost total refusal of both technology and science, inevitably results in strong decreases of yields and notable increase in production costs besides the objective risk of quality discontinuity and deterioration of wines. All of that implies high prices per bottle and often products of disputable quality and consistency. Thus, there are different ways of helping consumers to select wished wine. One example is the creation of a special wine chart characterized by some quantifiable attributes, related to measured traceability, typicality, health protection and organoleptic effect and classify each product by a score calculated by weighted sum of each attribute value. The beneficial properties of wine apparently are due to its antioxidant capacity because of its high content of phenolic compounds.
Furthermore, glass beverage bottles cause most environmental damage, including global warming. Reusing a glass bottle three times lowers it carbon footprint roughly to that of a single-use plastic beverage bottle. Up to 80% of recycled glass can be reclaimed, and recycled glass uses 40% less energy than manufacturing new glass. In wine industry, almost 99% of packages are made from glass and having in mind that vines were grown in EU on 3.2 million hectares in 2015 representing 45 % of world’s total area under vines, it is clear that lack of recycling of wine glasses can cause devastating long-term impact on environment. Further to this, glass beverage bottles are expensive, and some retailers are providing return programs, offering a credit if a customer returns an empty bottle, that brings customers back to the store where they are likely to buy again. The ability of Smart tags to interact with user can be used to show information about when, where from what and under what circumstances is wine made, and engage consumer to recycle and even reward them.
To effectively apply novel PPPs to improve vineyards efficiency and reduce use of fertilizers and pesticides.
Integration of cutting-edge methodologies (HR and MC ICP-MS) to improve isotopic fingerprint gathered information and improve discriminatory geographic origin assessment of targeted DOPs and DOCs.
Integrated approach between sensory and chemical evaluation of wines, to select and verify sensorial attributes showing the strongest correlations with the chemical parameters.
Potential health properties of wines expressed by useful parameters (total phenols, flavonoid contents, antioxidant power).
To implement a decentralized blockchain based traceability system with cryptographic schemes for wine supply chain to provide transparency, provenance, safety, and security.
