The second edition of the “Lifestyle, Diet, Wine & Health” congress, partnered with Science and Wine, will be held in Rome, Italy from March 26-28, 2025. This international event brings together leading scientists to present the latest research on healthy lifestyles, combining information on active living, balanced Mediterranean-style diets, and moderate wine consumption.
Low-Alcohol and Nonalcoholic Wines: From Production to Cardiovascular Health, along with Their Economic Effects
The emergence of nonalcoholic wines is driven by health, economic, and social factors, meeting growing consumer interest in healthier lifestyles. The health benefits of low-alcohol and nonalcoholic wines, particularly cardiovascular health, are increasingly recognized. Winemakers can diversify their product lines using these alternatives, extend their customer base, and contribute to public health. Advanced production techniques such as vacuum distillation, spinning cone columns, and reverse osmosis reduce alcohol content without compromising quality. The expanding market for low-alcohol wines offers significant growth opportunities, enabling winemakers to diversify their revenue streams and enhance profitability. Evolving regulations, especially in Europe, emphasize transparency in labeling and nutritional information, aligned with consumer preferences. Incorporating low-alcohol and nonalcoholic wines is a strategic move for winemakers, ensuring competitiveness and relevance in a changing market.
Wine waste valorisation: crushing the research domain
The paper, “Wine waste valorisation: crushing the research domain,” delves deeply into sustainability practices and the implementation of circular economy strategies in the wine industry. This highlights the urgent need for the wine industry to adopt sustainable and profitable methods for waste valorization, addressing both environmental and economic sustainability goals. This study conducted a systematic literature review of 67 scientific papers and additional grey literature to provide a comprehensive overview of current practices and gaps in the research.
Three decades of research on wine marketing
This comprehensive review examines the evolution and trends in wine marketing research over the past three decades, drawing on 1135 documents published between 1990 and 2022 from Web of Science and Scopus databases. This study identifies key themes and their development over time using bibliometric techniques, such as co-word analysis and bibliographic coupling. Early research focused on consumer behavior and pricing strategies, whereas recent years have seen an expansion in wine tourism, sustainability, and digital marketing. The findings highlight the growing importance of sustainability practices and the role of digital platforms in shaping consumers’ preferences. Key research themes include consumer behavior, wine quality, market segmentation, and sustainability, which reflect the industry’s response to evolving market dynamics and environmental challenges. This study underscores the multidisciplinary nature of wine marketing research, integrating insights from business, economics, food science, and environmental studies and provides a foundation for future research to develop effective marketing strategies in the global wine market.
Viticulture and the European Union’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP): Historical overview, current situation and future perspective
The paper emphasizes the importance of disseminating agroecological knowledge and implementing nature-based strategies to ensure the successful application of the CAP reforms. It calls for a collective awareness and effort from all societal sectors, including producers, consumers, and policymakers, to embrace environmental protection measures in agriculture. The paper also stresses the need to communicate effectively the benefits of biodiversity conservation and natural soil processes to accelerate the adaptation of agricultural systems to environmental challenges.
Enhancing employee wellbeing and happiness management in the wine industry
This research examines the connection between Green Human Resource Management (GHRM) and Sustainable Performance (SP) in Spanish wineries, emphasizing the mediating roles of Employee Wellbeing (EW) and Work Engagement (WE). This study is pertinent, given the growing focus on sustainability as a core business strategy. To refine the precision of the examined cause-effect relationships, variables such as the age and size of the winery and membership in a Protected Designation of Origin (PDO) are incorporated as controls. Utilizing a conceptual model informed by prior studies, this study employs structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) to analyze data from 196 wineries collected from September 2022 to January 2023. The findings highlight a positive and significant link between GHRM practices and the SP of these wineries, with EW and WE serving as partial mediators. The significance of this study lies in its contribution to the understanding of GHRM’s benefits in enhancing SP, particularly in the Spanish wine industry, a context not extensively explored in previous research. To the best of our knowledge, this study is the first to investigate the mediating effects of EW and WE on the GHRM-SP relationship in this sector, marking a notable advancement in this field.
Management practices, and not surrounding habitats, drive bird and arthropod biodiversity within vineyards
This post is about a paper that concluded that individual management practices are more influential on vineyard biodiversity than the habitat context, overall management regime, or certification status. This study recommends that sustainability accreditation schemes focus on reducing the ecotoxicity of agrochemicals used and encourage the promotion of higher ground vegetation cover by reducing herbicide use to benefit vineyard biodiversity.
Underrated aspects of a true Mediterranean diet: understanding traditional features for worldwide application of a “Planeterranean” diet
This study explored the multifaceted nature of the Mediterranean diet, beyond its commonly recognized health benefits. It argues that traditional assessment methods focusing on specific food items and dietary scores fail to capture the diet’s cultural, environmental, and lifestyle dimensions. The paper emphasizes the holistic essence of diet, deeply embedded in the history and traditions of the Mediterranean people, which includes a diverse array of foods, social dining practices, and sustainable local agricultural methods. This paper suggests that future research should integrate these underrated aspects, considering the diet’s broader cultural and lifestyle context, to truly understand its impact on health and well-being. This comprehensive approach would allow for the application of a ” planeterranean ” diet globally, promoting not only nutritional health but also environmental and social well-being.
Effects of post-fermentation addition of green tea extract for sulfur dioxide replacement on Sauvignon Blanc wine phenolic composition, antioxidant capacity, colour, and mouthfeel attributes
This study emphasises the potential of green tea extract as a prospective preservative in winemaking, which is capable of improving the phenolic content and antioxidant capacity of wine while preserving its sensory characteristics. However, additional research is necessary to thoroughly understand the long-term consequences of using green tea extracts in winemaking, including their impact on wine aroma, flavour, and aging characteristics.
Attitudes towards natural wines among Spanish winemakers: Relationship with environmental awareness
this research pioneers in revealing the complex interplay of ecological awareness, sensory perceptions, and market understanding in shaping Spanish winemakers’ attitudes towards NWs. It underscores the need for further research to bridge the gap in consumer and producer perceptions and to address the current asymmetry of information in the wine market. The study’s limitations include its reliance on convenience sampling, suggesting a need for more comprehensive future research designs.