Collaborative project

Chardonnay is one of the dominant grapevine cultivars used for winemaking in Australia. There are now many clones of this variety, some of which have only recently become available in Australia. These clones exhibit variation in a number of viticultural and oenological traits including fruit composition, flavour and aroma profile, ripening time, flower morphology (leading to seedless grapes), bunch morphology, yield and grape colour. This project aims to assess the genetic variation among clones of Chardonnay available in Australia, and evaluate how this variation contributes to chemical and sensory variation in grapes and wines derived from the different clones.