Influence of grapevine canopy trimming and maturity variability within fruit population on the sensory properties of Pinot noir wine

Abstract

The effects of differences in Pinot noir fruit maturity on the sensory properties, overall complexity and typicality of 'Marlborough Pinot noir' wines was studied over two seasons. Trimming canopies to 100 (TT), 60 (MT), or 30 (ST) cm above the fruiting cordon produced fruit with high, moderate and low soluble solids at harvest respectively. To investigate the variability of fruit populations (i.e. homogeneous v. heterogeneous soluble solids concentrations) on wine sensory properties, each treatment was harvested on the same date and fermented both separately and after blending fruit to ratios of 10:80:10 and 30:40:30 of low, moderate, and high maturities respectively. Additional wines were created after fermentation by blending wines made from each trim treatment to the same ratio as used for the pre-fermentation fruit population blends. Moderate and high fruit maturities provided wines with similar sensory properties, complexity and typicality as 'Marlborough Pinot noir'. Low 'Pinot noir' fruit maturity resulted in less fruity, spicy, full-bodied characters, more green/vegetal, and overall less complex wines compared with moderate and high fruit maturity wines. Composite wines made by blending, post-fermentation, wines produced from low, moderate and high maturity fruit did not differ from the wines made from similar blends of fruit. Indeed, the four composite wines made from blending fruit or wines had organoleptic properties comparable to those of the wine made with a homogeneous fruit population of moderate maturity with the same mean soluble solids concentrations. We conclude that 'Pinot noir' wines made using fruit with a wide range of maturities do not have different sensory properties from those made with fruit with a narrow range of maturities, providing the mean soluble solids concentrations of the fruit populations are similar.