Several red wines were elaborated to assess the effect of the degree of grape ripening on wine color and on the levels of flavanol and anthocyanin compounds, which are chiefly responsible for the wine color attributes. Two different cultivars and three different degrees of ripening were studied in two consecutive years. The wines were aged for 1 year in American oak barrels of medium-high char followed by 6 months in the bottle. The results showed that the wines made from more mature grapes had generally higher free anthocyanin content, and during aging the decrease of the free anthocyanins and flavanols took place in conjunction with an increase in the levels of the anthocyanin derivatives or "new pigments", which are responsible for maintaining color intensity and adding violet hues in aged wines. From the results obtained, it seems to be clear that the characteristics and composition of grapes harvested later (7-8 days in this region and for these varieties) than the usual time are quite beneficial to obtaining quality aged wines. The phenolic composition of wines made from the last harvested grapes is mainly responsible for the stability of their color, which is extremely important in product acceptance with a significant increase hence of product quality.

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Summary The effect of the addition of four commercial pectolytic preparations on the visual characteristics (colour and turbidity) of red wines has been evaluated. The effect of both clarifying and colour extracting enzymes and the effect of different doses used, were evaluated and compared. All the red wines treated enzymatically, independent of the type of enzyme and dose, present chromatic characteristics which can be considered better than those of the control wines. Also, those wines treated with enzymes had greater stability during 2 years storage in bottles, in particular the turbidity was better than untreated wines.

Synthetic seeds can be an alternative for those species in which botanical seeds are not viable. One of the major problems of in vitro plant cultivation is the high level of somaclonal variation. The most common factors affecting somaclonal variation are genotype, explant source, in vitro period and cultivation conditions in which the culture is established. In this work, calli were induced using leaf and stem explants of the commercial potato cultivars Achat, Baraka, Baronesa, Bintje, and Contenda in MS culture media supplemented with 1.65 mM of picloram and 11.5 mM of 2,4-D. Seventy and 90 days after induction, DNA samples of 40 calli were compared concerning the effects of the two explant (leaf and stem) and two growth regulator sources on five potatoes cultivars. A total of 20 arbitrary sequence primers were evaluated. The RAPD pattern generated by these primers suggested a high percentage of polymorphic fragments among the five genotypes, indicating a high level of genetic variation among cultivars. Cultivar Baronesa showed the highest number of polymorphic fragments for all treatments. The cultivar Contenda showed the smallest somaclonal variation, for most of the treatments, except for the treatment which consisted of stem explants, picloram (1.65 mM) application, and a 70-day period of callus formation. 'Contenda' is, therefore, the most suitable cultivar for synthetic seed production.

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In general, the anthocyanin content of grapes increases during ripening but presents a concentration minimum a few days before physiological maturity. This minimum is sharper for the acyl derivatives. Significant behavioural differences were found between monoglucosides and their acyl derivatives.A polynomial model was used to describe the evolution of anthocyanins in the maturation of Tempranillo grapes (Vitis vinifera L).