Molecular breeding of grapevine for aromatic quality and other traits relevant to viticulture

Grapevine has never been considered as a model plant in classical genetic studies due to its high level of heterozygosity, its long juvenile phase and its perennial nature. As a consequence, studies on the genetic transmission of agronomical traits are relatively scarce. Most of the grapevine relevant traits are quantitative or polygenic in nature. A classical example of a quantitative trait is wine quality, which is governed by multiple genes and is enormously affected by the environment. Muscat cultivars as well as some non-muscat aromatic cultivars exhibit a rather particular aroma strongly related to the accumulation of monoterpenols in berries which is greatly appreciated for fresh grape consumption and plays an essential role in high-quality winemaking. Therefore the identification of genome regions involved in the determinism of Muscat aroma represents a major contribution to understanding the genetic control of traits of large interest for grape breeding.