The origin of the grapevine was investigated with archaeobotanical, cultural and historical data. A primary domestication centre was located in the Near East region but there is no agreement on the existence or role of secondary domestication centres. In this work, PCR-based microsatellite analysis has been applied to study the origin of some Italian cultivated grapevines from in situ direct domestication of the wild autoctonous grapevine. Three different Italian locations in Grosseto, Cosenza and Nuoro were identified for this study, and domesticated grapevine as well as wild local accessions growing in these location, were analysed by SSR markers. Cluster analysis performed on Cosenza and Grosseto samples showed a high value of genetic distance between domesticated and wild accessions. On the contrary two cultivars (Bovale Murru and Bovale Muristellu) recovered in Nuoro (in the Sardinia island) were very close to some wild varieties. This suggests that the latter two cultivars may have originated from wild grapevines and consequently that in this location a secondary grapevine domestication event occurred. Six Lambrusco varieties were also included in this analysis as ancient putative ancestors of the cultivated grapevines. The molecular analysis excluded this hypothesis and suggest Lambrusco as an independent Vitis taxon.

In viticulture, biotype identification problems have traditionally been solved using ampelography, ampelometry and chemical traits analysis. However, these tools have resulted in several false attributions, in particular when used at the clonal level. The availability of relatively cheap, reliable and reproducible tools to identify genetic differences at the clonal level would greatly facilitate the work of clonal patenting. In this work, 24 accessions of ‘Traminer’ cultivars were characterized using molecular markers. Three different approaches were applied: simple sequence repeats (SSR), amplified fragment length polymorphism (AFLP) and methyl‐sensitive amplified length polymorphism (MSAP). Results showed that SSRs were not a powerful tool for clonal distinction. In contrast, the AFLP technique was able to distinguish 16 out of the 24 cultivars, even though the average similarity was high (97.1%). The MSAP technique was used to evaluate qualitative differences in the degree of DNA methylation among clones. Results suggest that morphological differences among clones are probably due to the synergetic effect of genetic and epigenetic modifications, and that clonal identification could be greatly improved using molecular tools such as AFLP and MSAP.

Historical information and archaeological and\ud palaeobotanical findings point Georgia, in the South\ud Caucasus, as a cradle for grapevine (Vitis vinifera L.) domestication\ud from its wild form (V. vinifera silvestris Beck.) and\ud subsequent selection and development of varieties with characters\ud suitable for human consumption. The hypothesis of\ud Georgia being a center of domestication, combined with its\ud distance from western countries and the importance of its\ud viticulture and wine production, make Georgian grape\ud germplasm particularly interesting to be investigated under\ud the genetic point of view. Twenty nuclear microsatellite loci\ud were used to genotype 112 Georgian grapevine accessions (V.\ud vinifera sativa Beck.) fromgermplasm collections and 18 from\ud spontaneous growing plants (V. vinifera silvestris Beck.) found\ud in wild conditions and to compare them to a large international\ud cultivar collection in France. Data analysis shows that\ud Georgian grapevine germplasm has maintained distinctive\ud traits despite arrival of international, foreign varieties and still\ud conserve characteristics of local breeding linked to traditional\ud wine production regions of the country. Results have identified\ud alleles, overall loci, well represented in the Georgian germplasm\ud (cultivated and wild) and absent or poorly represented in\ud other countries, highlighting uniqueness and originality of\ud traits of this viticulture. Moreover, the search for relationships\ud between Georgian and foreign viticulture has evidenced few\ud interesting cases linking the Georgian varieties with Western\ud European ones and with neighboring Caucasian countries,\ud helping to identify the real place of origin in some doubtful\ud cases. In addition, populations or sparse individuals of wild\ud grapevine still preserved in the Georgian natural environments\ud present smaller genetic distances with local cultivars than in\ud other European regions. Principal component analysis (PCA)\ud has also identified special overlapping of the wild compartment\ud with some cultivated varieties. This work provides a\ud highly significant new contribution to applied aspects of\ud Georgian grapevine genetic resources management and use.\ud Uniqueness of the Georgian cultivated grapevine gene pool\ud together with its close relatedness with the wild compartment\ud makes this country a good candidate to address questions\ud regarding domestication and grapevine genetic resource\ud conservatio

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The origin of the grapevine, Vitis vinifera L. (ssp.) sativa has been investigated with archaeobotanicalarchaeological, cultural and historical data indicating a unique domestication centre located in the Caucasian and Middel-East regions about 6-7000 years ago, but, events leading to the domestication of this species are still an open issue. In this work, eight universal chloroplast microsatellites are used to assess genetic relationships among varieties selected as representatives of four distinct geographical groups from Middle-East to Western European regions. Results show that two out of the eight analysed chloroplast loci are polymorphic within the 142 individuals. Allele variants of the cpSSR loci combine in a total of six different haplotypes. The analysis of haplotypes distribution and haplotype diversity (HD) suggest that only three out of the six haplotypes are represented in the Caucasian and Middle-East samples, with 90% of individuals sharing the same haplotype. Moreover, the presence of all six haplotypes in the European accessions, with a high level of haplotype diversity, suggests varietal influx in these areas. Concerning the Western European varieties, especially in Spanish accessions, half of the individuals share haplotype VI which is completely absent in the Caucasian and Middle-East cultivars. This result opens the discussion about the existence of a unique and common domestication centre, located in the Caucasian and MiddleEast area, for all the European cultivars. This work suggests the usefulness of chloroplast genome markers to provide information on haplotype distributions that could help to identify further geographical areas for grapevine varietal evolution.Abbreviations: cpSSRs -chloroplast simple sequence repeats