Microbial biogeography of wine grapes is conditioned by cultivar, vintage, and climate

Wine grapes present a unique biogeography model, wherein microbial biodiversity patterns across viticultural zones not only answer questions of dispersal and community maintenance, they are also an inherent component of the quality, consumer acceptance, and economic appreciation of a culturally impo...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences - PNAS 2014-01, Vol.111 (1), p.E139-E148
Main Authors: Bokulich, Nicholas A, Thorngate, John H, Richardson, Paul M, Mills, David A
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Agriculture - methods
Bacteria
Berries
Biodiversity
biogeography
Biological Sciences
Climate
consumer acceptance
cultivars
Dispersal
Environment
Environmental conditions
environmental factors
Fermentation
Food Microbiology
fungi
Genomics
Geography
microbial activity
Phylogeny
PNAS Plus
Saccharomyces - genetics
Saccharomyces cerevisiae - genetics
Sequence Analysis, DNA
Species Specificity
vineyards
Vitaceae
viticulture
Vitis
Vitis - microbiology
Vitis - physiology
Wine - microbiology
wine grapes
wine quality
Wines
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Summary:Wine grapes present a unique biogeography model, wherein microbial biodiversity patterns across viticultural zones not only answer questions of dispersal and community maintenance, they are also an inherent component of the quality, consumer acceptance, and economic appreciation of a culturally important food product. On their journey from the vineyard to the wine bottle, grapes are transformed to wine through microbial activity, with indisputable consequences for wine quality parameters. Wine grapes harbor a wide range of microbes originating from the surrounding environment, many of which are recognized for their role in grapevine health and wine quality. However, determinants of regional wine characteristics have not been identified, but are frequently assumed to stem from viticultural or geological factors alone. This study used a high-throughput, short-amplicon sequencing approach to demonstrate that regional, site-specific, and grape-variety factors shape the fungal and bacterial consortia inhabiting wine-grape surfaces. Furthermore, these microbial assemblages are correlated to specific climatic features, suggesting a link between vineyard environmental conditions and microbial inhabitation patterns. Taken together, these factors shape the unique microbial inputs to regional wine fermentations, posing the existence of nonrandom “microbial terroir ” as a determining factor in regional variation among wine grapes.
ISSN:0027-8424
1091-6490
DOI:10.1073/pnas.1317377110