The curtain falls on the digital event organised by the University of Verona, the Edmund Mach Foundation and the University of Turin, with the technical support of VINIDEA.
The eighth edition of Macrowine, the world's leading scientific research event, concluded with more than positive results. A great success in terms of participation: from 23 to 30 June, 428 delegates from 23 countries were involved in 10 live sessions lasting a total of 20 hours, hosting the most original and innovative results obtained by international research centres in the field of world viticulture and oenology.
The 2021 edition offered a rich, high-level scientific programme, with topics ranging from the vineyard to the glass, i.e. from grape variety diversity and sustainable viticulture practices to the microbial ecosystem, from the field to final consumption, not forgetting the shelf life of wines and the tools available to support precision and innovative viticulture.
The virtual environment allowed a wider participation of researchers from all over the world, but also of operators and technicians from wineries (18% of participants). The success of the event was due to the experience of VINIDEA, which has been organising webinars and on-line conferences for the wine sector for more than a decade, and which was entrusted with the organisational secretariat of Macrowine 2021.
At the closing ceremony, the organising representatives of the three institutions Maurizio Ugliano (University of Verona), Luca Rolle (University of Turin) and Fulvio Mattivi (Edmund Mach Foundation) handed over the baton to the University of Bordeaux, which has been assigned the organisation of Macrowine 2023.
During the event, the "Best young resarcher" award was presented. The Macrowine Scientific Committee selected the best work submitted by researchers under the age of 35 on the basis of novelty, originality and scientific quality. From 160 candidates, the prize was awarded to Marie Le Scanff from the University of Bordeaux (France) for her work "Understanding the sweetness of dry wines: first tests of astilbin isomers in red wines and quantification in a range of vintages over a century".
The conference was also closed by Prof. Ulrich Fisher, who presented the main event for research in viticulture and oenology in 2022: In Vino Analytica Scientia (IVAS 2022). This event, held in alternate years to Macrowine, will take place in Neustadt, Germany, from 3 to 7 July 2022.
The experiment of organising in virtual form has been a great success and will allow the technology developed to be used to organise events in "mixed" mode in the future, when they return to being held in presence.
