Vines to wine – Linking fruit quality to wine flavour and aroma

A research stream of the CSIRO Food Futures Flagship was established to study the influence of the grape on wine flavour and aroma and represented a considerable CSIRO investment in grapevine research. The aims of this project were to determine the links between grape composition and the volatile compounds and sensory attributes of the resultant wine, and to understand how to optimise grape composition and communicate this information to grape growers so that it is incorporated into their viticultural practices. Initial experiments were based on a correlative approach where grape and wine samples were obtained from matched commercial vineyards and analysed for sensory characteristics and chemical composition. Following co-investment in the project by the GWRDC, the scope was expanded to include sampling from viticultural trials for chemical and sensory analyses. This enabled the further investigation of grape-wine chemistry links and the analyses of flavour and aroma compounds in wines from several viticultural studies conducted by CSIRO researchers.