Microbial terroir in vineyards: the keys drivers involve both abiotic and plant-specific factors. A new dimension of microbial terroir in vineyards

A vineyard terroir is traditionally defined based on the bedrock and related soil characteristics, and on the topography and climate of a region. However, recent studies have introduced the importance of including the microorganism component i.e. the microbial terroir, in the definition of a terroir. Most studies on the biogeography of microorganisms associated with vines have been conducted at large scales (e.g. over 100 km) and analyzed the bulk soil and the rhizosphere. In this study, we innovatively challenge and transpose the idea of an existing microbial terroir to a local scale (i.e. between-parcel and within-parcel analyses) focusing on the root-microbiota endosphere. We sampled vine roots in 37 parcels distributed throughout a vineyard to investigate changes in the grapevine microbiota. We observed that vine endospheric microbiota differed according to both the edaphic and plant-specific parameters including cultivars and age. This work suggests that microbial terroir can be defined at very small scales within a domain and offers a new perspective for winemakers to include this dimension in their production with the use of spatial maps of the microbial terroir.