Metabolite profiling of wines made from disease-tolerant varieties

Disease-tolerant varieties of Vitis vinifera are receiving great attention due to their great potential in significantly reducing the application of chemical products as well as the production costs in viticulture. The aim of this study was to characterise the chemical composition of wine produced from a wide selection of some promising disease-tolerant grape varieties grown in Italy and Germany in different years. Some of them were analysed for the first time and their characterisation was based on a comparison with traditional European varieties of grapevine (Vitis vinifera L.) to find out the similarities and also possible differences between them. A multi-targeted approach using different analytical techniques (GC–MS, HS-GC–PFPD, UPLC–MS/MS, NMR and FT-MIR analysis) was adopted to investigate the main classes of volatile and non-volatile compounds playing a key role in the organoleptic and sensory properties of wine. The results showed the strong influence of the vintage on the chemical composition of wine and good stability of the metabolite profile of wines produced from grape varieties grown in different vineyard locations. Overall, by providing broad coverage of grape composition and diversity, this study highlighted substantial overlapping of the chemical space of traditional and disease-tolerant varieties. The information gained can be used to select winemaking techniques aimed at improving the quality of the final wine to promote the use of disease-tolerant varieties for quality wine production.