Profile of phenolic compounds in Cabernet Franc berries and wines from different Geographical Indications of Mendoza, Argentina

MUÑOZ F.; BUSCEMA F.; BERLI F.; URVIETA R.; FONTANA A.; RASSE M.; BOTTINI R.

Punta del Este

Congreso; XLI World Congress of Vine and Wine; 2018

Organización Internacional de la Viña y el Vino (OIV)

In Mendoza province, the vineyards are on five zones that belong to the different productive oases; and inside of these, there are Geographical Indications (GIs) that allow identifying the originating products with different reputation, quality and characteristics from each locality. For example, the Uco Valley is the wine producer with the highest altitude in the province (it is located on the foothills of the Cordillera de los Andes), and it has 14 different IGs.The Cabernet Franc is an Argentinean cultivar; and it is in all the wine provinces (929 ha), representing 0.4% of the total vineyard area of the country, which 685 ha are in Mendoza (INV, 2016). In this province, the vineyards of Cabernet Franc are concentrated in the Uco Valley (45%) and in Luján de Cuyo department (33%) (INV, Cabernet Franc Variety Report, 2017). Cabernet Franc has been growing, so it changed from a variety used for blends wines to be vinified as a medium-high quality wine, mainly because it has a potential to produce high-added-value wines and it has distinct characteristics. The particularities of the vine and the wines depend on the "terroir"; in the simplest sense, this concept refers to the effects of vegetative material (genotype) combined with the environmental factors and the crop management conditions. Likewise, the significance of quality integrates several aspects, but for the production of red wines, they correlate with high contents of phenolic compounds.The present study aimed to characterize the profiles and concentration of phenolic compounds of Cabernet Franc cv. grapes and wines from vineyards located in different IGs of the Uco Valley and Luján de Cuyo department. Representative plots from different GIs (Gualtallary, Eugenio Bustos, Paraje Altamira and Agrelo) were selected; grapes at commercial maturity (24Brix) were harvested; and wines were made in triplicate under standardized conditions in 800 liters vessels. In order to evaluate the effect of the cultivation site an experimental system was used, in which, the greatest variations were given by the cultivation site (environmental factors: temperature, altitude, radiation, humidity).The phenolic compounds of berries and wines were determined by liquid chromatography with diode array detector (HPLC-DAD).The results reveal that samples of different GIs have different chemical composition, and that many compounds are correlated with variables such as the altitude at which the vineyards are located. The concentration of anthocyanins and total polyphenols increases with height. There are similarities respect to polyphenolic composition between Eugenio Bustos and Altamira IGs, since they are close to each other, while there are greater differences when Agrelo with Gualtallary IGs are compared.