Intangible Heritage and Its Associative Objects as Exemplified by the Materiality of the Portable Material Culture of German Christmas Markets

Paula Silva

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This post honors the victims of the tragic Magdeburg Christmas market attack by celebrating the cultural significance of German Christmas markets and their iconic Glühwein (mulled wine). These markets, deeply rooted in tradition, are spaces of unity and joy, where Glühwein symbolizes warmth, togetherness, and resilience. Served in reusable, collectible cups, it reflects sustainable practices and offers visitors cherished mementos of their experience. The tragedy reminds us of the need to protect these spaces of celebration and foster peace. Let us honor the victims by preserving these traditions and committing to unity, kindness, and hope this holiday season.

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Advances in grape seed oil extraction techniques and their applications in food products

Paula Silva

This paper explores the potential of grape seed oil as a valuable byproduct of winemaking. It examines the bioactive compounds in grape seed oil, including fatty acids, tocopherols, and phytosterols, which provide antioxidant and antimicrobial properties. The study highlights various extraction methods, from traditional pressing to advanced techniques like ultrasound-assisted and supercritical fluid extraction, which optimize yield and quality. Applications of grape seed oil in food products, such as emulsions, chocolates, and meat products, are also discussed, emphasizing its functional and nutritional benefits. The paper concludes that further innovation and sustainable practices could maximize the utility of grape seed oil, making it a valuable resource for waste management in the wine industry and expanding its role in food applications.

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Tracking physical activity patterns linked to neck and back pain in viticulture workers: Insights from objective measures

Paula Silva

e Lavor et al. (2024) examined the relationship between physical behaviors and musculoskeletal pain in viticulture workers, particularly focusing on neck, upper back, and lower back pain. Using accelerometers, they measured workers’ physical activities—lying down, sitting, standing, and walking—during work and non-work hours. The results showed high pain prevalence: 60% had lower back pain, 52% had upper back pain, and 46.7% had neck pain. Standing was predominant during work hours, while sedentary behavior was common during non-work hours. Increased sleep was correlated with less neck pain, whereas sedentary behaviors during non-work hours were linked to more upper back pain. No specific physical behaviors were associated with lower back pain, suggesting the presence of other factors, such as cumulative strain. This study emphasizes the need for occupational health interventions in viticulture, including ergonomic adjustments, promoting physical activity outside work, and encouraging good sleep hygiene to reduce pain.

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Deep Planet: Pioneering AI for a Sustainable Future

Paula Silva

Founded in 2018 by Oxford University scientists, Deep Planet is an AgriTech company leveraging artificial intelligence (AI) to address environmental challenges in agriculture, particularly in the wine industry. Their platform, VineSignal, offers precision tools for vineyard management, including optimal harvest timing, yield forecasting, disease detection, precision fertilization, soil carbon sequestration, and smart irrigation. These AI-driven solutions promote sustainability and resource efficiency, helping farmers and winemakers improve crop quality and minimize environmental impact. Deep Planet seeks partners to collaborate on advancing sustainable agriculture globally.

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Three decades of research on wine marketing

Paula Silva

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.

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Enhancing employee wellbeing and happiness management in the wine industry

Paula Silva

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.

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3rd World Science & Wine: Sustainability of wine production and food systems in the Mediterranean region

Paula Silva

As promised, we will maintain the organization of the World Congress every two years. The 3rd World Science & Wine Congress will be from 14 to 16 June 2023 in Vila Nova De Gaia and the Douro region. The topic for this scientific meeting here will be “Sustainability of wine production and food systems in the Mediterranean region”.

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5th Edition of the Wine Active Compounds (WAC) Congress, Dijon 2022

Paula Silva

After two successive postponements, the fifth edition of Wine Active Compounds (WAC) 2021 happened in the Palace of the Dukes of Burgundy in Dijon, France, from Wednesday June 29 to Friday July 1, 2022, under the auspices of the UNESCO Chair “Culture & Traditions of Wines” and the Institut Jules Guyot at University of Burgund.

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Correlating wine astringency with physical measures – current knowledge and future directions

Paula Silva

Oral tribology receives growing attention in the field of food sciences as it offers great opportunities to establish correlations between physical parameters, such as the coefficient of friction, and sensory effects when interacting with components of the human mouth. One important aspect covers the astringency produced by wine, which can be described as the sensation of dryness and puckering in the mouth, specifically occurring between the tongue and the palate after swallowing. Therefore, this post reports the resulst of a study which aims at shedding some light on recent trends to correlate physical measures, such as the coefficient of friction derived by oral tribology, with prevailing theories on underlying physiological causes for sensory perception of wines. Some successful cases reported the potential of correlating wine astringency perception with the coefficient of friction in tribological experiments. Our critical assessment demonstrates that the findings are still contradictory, which urgently asks for more systematic studies. Therefore, the authors summarize the current challenges and hypothesize on future research directions with a particular emphasis on the comparability, reproducibility and transferability of studies using different experimental test-rigs and procedures.

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Umami in fermented beverages

Paula Silva

In the present post authors present a summary of the results obtained in a study where for a wide range of fermented beverages in terms of their e free amino acid (FAA) composition and they provide quantitative evidence that beverages with long yeast contact may contain larger amounts of free glutamate and hence hold a greater potential for imparting umami than beverages with no or little yeast contact. To the extent that umami-synergy is a key in pairing fermented beverages and foodstuff, the results presented in the present post may be useful for practitioners in the restaurant and beverage business. For example, it may provide a quantitative basis for the claim that sake is also a good companion with shellfish and other fish and that some beers may be just as good as long-time fermented wine and champagnes in terms of umami taste pairing of food and beverages.

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