Morphological and Biochemical Diversity Among Autochthonous Grape Cultivars

Northeastern part of Turkey is rich in terms of autochthonous grape cultivars. In the region Yusufeli district has special importance for historical cultivation of grapevine. This small district has over fourteen local grape cultivars. Present study describe morphological and biochemical characteristics of nine autochthonous grape cultivars grown in Yusufeli district in Turkey. The standard Turkish grape cultivar ‘Cavus’ was also included experiment to make comparison with local ones. Bunch size, berry color, berry shape and usage are the searched main morphological characteristics. Phenolic compounds, organic acids, vitamin C and specific sugars were the main biochemical parameters. We found a wide variation among both morphological and biochemical characteristics. The cultivars showed low to medium bunch size. Chlorgenic acid (2.231–4.811 mg/L), syringic acid (1.027–5.426 mg/L) and rutin (1.013–1.129 mg/L) were found the highest content in berries of cultivars. As expected, tartaric acid that characteristic for grape berries was the dominant (ranged from 1.826 to 3.336 g/L) and followed by malic acid (ranged from 1.089 to 2.344 g/L). The all autochthonous grape cultivars had glucose the highest concentration as major sugar and followed by fructose. It can be concluded that morphological and biochemical characteristics analyzed could be useful to give information about selection of the promising grape cultivars for breeders.