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Summary D1 Wine Production
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Complete and detailed summary of the full handbook D1 Wine Production, WSET Diploma Academic Year.
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D1:WINE PRODUCTION
VITICULTURE
&
WINEMAKING
,Diploma WSET D1: Wine Production
1. THE VINE
• Over 1,000 known grape varieties in the world à vast majority belong to Vitis Vinifera, indigenous to
Eurasia
• North American vine species also used (e.g. New York State), but main function is as rootstocks:
o Vitis labrusca
o Vitis riparia
o Vitis berlandieri
o Vitis rupestris
THE ANATOMY OF THE VINE
1. SHOOTS: grows in spring from buds retained from the previous year.
The main axis transports water and solutes (substances that dissolve into a liquid to form a solution, e.g. sugar
and minerals) and stores carbohydrates.
The little swellings along the shoot where other structures are attached are called nodes, and in between are the
internodes.
In late summer, the leaves fall from the wine and the green shoots lignify à become canes.
a) Buds form between the leaf stalk (petiole) and the stem:
1) Compund buds (or latent buds) form in one growing season and break open in the next à produce
shoots in the next growing season
Typically, there is one primary bud (main growing point) and smaller secondary and tertiary,
which grow only due to damage to the primary occurs.
2) Prompt buds form and break open in the same growing season à produce lateral shoots
b) Lateral Shoots are smaller and thinner, and allow the plant to carry on growing if the tip of the primary
shoot has been damaged or eaten, provide additional source of leaves for photosynthesis, but can be
undesirable if they impede air flow and can share the fruit: may be removed in summer pruning.
Depending on grape variety and canopy management techniques they often produce inflorescences, known
as second crop (e.g. typical for Pinot Noir), which become bunches of grapes later that those on the main
stem, hence ripen later: higher in acidity, lower in sugar, may have unripe tannins and aromas/flavours, less
colour development (for black grapes).
a. May be removed by green harvesting: thought to enhance the ripening process and improve uniformity
of ripeness
b. If hand harvest: second crop can be separated
c) Tendrils supporting system of the shoot in nature à grape growers can use trellis to position the vine
canopy which they tie in canes and shoots as necessary
d) Leaves are the main site of photosynthesis, which producers sugar that is used for vine growth and
metabolism.
Stomata (pores) open on the underside à water out à carbon dioxide in
As water diffuses, transpiration draws water and nutrients from the soil up – the Stomata partially close if
the vine is water stresses (conserve water), but this limits photosynthesis cause CO2 cannot enter.
e) Inflorescences are 1-3 clusters of flowers each shoot on a stem, which becomes a bunch of grapes at fruit
set.
f) Bunches are fertilized inflorescences, whose flowers (may) successfully become grapes, depending on
individual grapes, clones, size and shape of the bunch.
g) Grape is a type of berry:
1) Pulp: majority of grape’s weight and volume. It contains water, sugars, acids, some aroma compounds
and precursors. Pulp is generally colourless (except for teinturier varieties, e.g. Alicante Bouschet)
2) Skin: high concentration of aroma compounds and precursors, tannins and color compounds
3) Seeds: mature inside the grape, turning yellow to dark brown. Cotain oils, tannins and the embryo
4) Bloom: powdery, waxy coating that covers the surface of the grape.
2. ONE-YEAR-OLD WOOD: shoots from the previous growing season that were not removed at pruning.
It supports the compound buds that will break to release the shoots for the upcoming growing season.
1) Cane: longer section of one-year-old wood, that can have 8-20 buds.
2) Spur: short section of one-year-old wood and cut back to only 2-3 buds.
2
,Diploma WSET D1: Wine Production
3. PERMANENT WOOD: woody parts of the vine that are older than one year (trunk included), provide
support for the other parts of the wine, transport wate and solutes, store carbohydrates and nutrients.
Cordon: one or more horizontal arm of permanent wood
4. ROOTS: found in the top 50m of the soil (vine roots have been found reaching over six m down the soil).
The distribution of the main framework of roots is influenced by soil properties, irrigation, cultivation, type
of rootstock.
• anchor the vine,
• uptake water and nutrients (from root tips),
• store carbohydrates,
• produce hormones with important functions within vine growth and grape ripening
VINE PROPAGATION
In modern viticulture, vines are propagated by:
1. Cutting: section of a vine shoot that can be planted and will then grow as a new plant. Most common
propagation technique, as many small cuttings can be taken and propagate at the same time, permits the use
of a rootstock and nurseries are able to treat vine cuttings to avoid spread of diseases
2. Layering: method of filling grapes in a vineyard (e.g. due to death of a vine) by using shoots from an
established neighbouring vine to produce a new vine.
A cane is bent down and a section of it is buried in the ground, and the tip of the cane points up out of the ground. The section
that is buried takes root and, once these roots are established, the cane linking the new growth to the original plant is cut.
The new vine will have no protection against phylloxera or have the qualities (e.g. desired yield) that a choice
of rootstocks offers.
These methods create new plants that are genetically identical to the parent plant: in viticulture, vines are not
propagated through seeds, because they are not genetically identical to the parent vines.
At each cell division during plant growth these is the risk that random mutations in the genetic code will occur,
and some cause the new vine to have slightly different characteristics (e.g. smaller or larger grapes, thicker or
thinner grape skins, more or less disease resistance, etc.)
A) CLONES (clonal selection, practice became common in the last 40-50 years): vines with particularly
favourable characteristics are selected by vine nurseries or grape growers for propagation by cuttings in
order to grow new vines with these favourable characteristics.
• Pinot Noir Clone 115: low yield of small grapes, suited to high quality red wine production;
• Pinot Noir Clone 521: higher yield of bigger grapes, better suited to sparkling wine production à high
concentrations of tannins and colour from the skins are not needed
On rare occasions, a mutation might be so significant that the new vine is classified as a new grape variety:
Pinot Noir, Meunier, Pinot Blanc, Pinot Gris < same variety Pinot.
The most common way of obtaining new planting material is to buy young vines from a nursery, as they
have been tested to be free from virus infection.
Depending on region and grape variety, there may be a limited supply of clones, meaning that the vines
planted across a vineyard or a region can be relatively uniform.
o Simpler management of the vineyard
o Less diversity in the fruit
o Less complexity and balance
o Vineyard more susceptible to disease
B) MASS SELECTION (Selection Massale): this technique requires vineyard owners to take cuttings from the
best-performing vines in their own vineyard(s), selected after several years of monitoring and recording their
performance, and cultivate these cuttings.
o Increases the diversity of planting material in the vineyard and throughout the region
o The vinetard owner is using their own unique planting material à can enhance fruit quality and/or yield,
used as marketing asset
o Costly in terms of time and labour
o If the parent vine is infected by disease, this is likely to be passed onto the new vines à can increase
spread of vine diseases
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, Diploma WSET D1: Wine Production
C) NEW GRAPE VARIETIES are typically produced from seed by cross fertilisation, where the pollen
from the stamens of the flowers of one vine is transferred to the stigmas of the flowers of another vine and
fertilisation occurs.
If there is thought to be value in making this new variety available commercially, it will need to be registered
on the OIV catalogue as a new grape variety:
• Cross: offspring of two parents from the same species (e.g. Pinotage < Pinot Noir & Cinsault)
• Hybrid: parent wines from different species (e.g. Vidal Blanc < Ugni Blanc & member of Seibel family
of American parentage)
It is thought that many grape varieties with a long history of cultivation were created through cross fertilisation that happened by
chance in the wild (e.g. Cabernet Sauvignon < Sauvignon Blanc & Cabernet Franc), but scientists are actively try to create useful
grape varieties in lab (e.g. Müller-Thurgau < Riesling & Madeleine Royale à with the aim of having the fruit quality of Riesling
and the high yield of Madeleine Royale, however, while it has proved to be valuable for its yields, very few would claim it has the
same quality potential as Riesling).
Various hybrids varieties were bred in an attempt to combine the resistance of non-vinifera species and the quality of fruit from V.
Vinifera. Unfortunately, many hybrids do not produce fruit that matches the quality of most V. Vinifera, but their other
characteristics make them useful as rootstocks.
Resistance against disease (e.g. Pierce’s Disease in California), pest and climatic extremes (e.g. drought) are
still important aims of current vine breeding programmes.
New grape varieties rarely come to the market, and the main reason is consumer resistance.
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