Influence of landscape on the Argentinean white wines “terroir”: cv. Torrontés Riojano

Special Analytical Standards Department, Submanagment of Research for Control, National Institute of Vitiviniculture, San Martín 430, Mendoza (CP 5500), Argentina

^a Corresponding author: raquelromano@inv.gov.ar

Abstract

There are many publications about the variables that influence the differentiation and the typicity of a “terroir”. However, there are no publications that objectively determine the influence of a landscape on the “terroir”.

The hypothesis that 5 odorant compounds could come from the shrub flora of vitivinicultural geographical areas has been posed.

The selected plant was jarilla (gender Larrea) and the study proceeded with leaves, stems, primary and secondary roots, flowers, pollen and fruits of jarilla in order to find in fact any of the 5 compounds.

The methodology was to analyze the odorant components of jarilla, the jarilla's surrounding soils and vines of different geographical areas, the volatile compounds absorption by the vine roots and the mechanisms of volatile compounds setting of the bloom. For all the studies, there were seventy-one volatile compounds used as variables, obtained by gas chromatography, by application of a multivariate statistical model for classification and by cluster method.

It was proved that there is a hierarchical relationship of the aromatic variables between pollen, roots and leaves of jarilla on one side, and the vineyards soils, vine blossoms and wines on the other.

This study confirms that the volatile compounds of jarilla, arrive to the vineyards in form of pollen and fruits to be later absorbed by vine roots as well as by blooms, forming so an interactive ecosystem unity.

It is concluded that the 5 volatile compounds could act as molecular markers of geographical areas.