Assessment and control of grape maturity and quality

Abstract Grape maturity at harvest strongly affects wine quality, and therefore determining an adequate strategy for harvest date selection based on objective quality indicators is a key issue in producing high-quality and premium wines. In white wine technology, grape quality is usually assessed by chemical composition with a particular interest in volatile content and profile. In this sense, vineyard management is of primary importance together with the choice of harvest time. In fact, the basis of wine characteristics is intrinsically confined in the grape quality, and the wide diversity in white wine grape chemical composition is of major technological importance, as each cultivar requires dedicated enological adaptation of the winemaking technique.