Berry Size and Yield Paradigms on Grapes and Wines Quality

A key objective of this review is to open a discussion on what we really know about the effect of berry size and yield on grape and wine quality. Even if berry size and crop yield are widely recognized as important factors in the quality of resultant wines, most prior research has shown no effect of yield on wine quality, and the direct effect of berry size has not been evaluated. Recently, some pruning, thinning and irrigation experiments were done to test independently for relationships due to size and yield compared with those due to the normal cultural practices used to control yield (thinning, pruning and irrigation). Data from these experiments have clearly shown that these considerated practices affected in an independent way berry size and yield producing grape and wine of different quality. This renders the generalizations asserted in both of the paradigms unfounded. We draw these conclusions about the dependence of composition on yield and berry size: the viticultural practices used to control yield in a vineyard may be more important than the yield or berry size values per se in determining the quality of the resulting grapes and wines.