The first week-long training event for doctoral students participating in the Eco2Wine project was held in July 2024. Titled “Omics Technologies Applied to Research in Vitiviniculture,” the event focused on the application of high-throughput sequencing techniques in viticulture and winemaking.

The event was held in Logroño, the capital of La Rioja, one of Spain’s most important viticulture regions. This small city is home to the Institute of Vine and Wine Sciences (ICVV-CSIC), one of the Eco2Wine beneficiaries, and the Fundación Rioja Salud, a consortium partner. The La Rioja Biomedical Research Centre’s facilities hosted the students and instructors during the theoretical-practical classes.

The training programme introduced the students to high-throughput sequencing and its vast applications in agriculture and biotechnology. It emphasised topics like de novo genomic sequencing, resequencing, transcriptomic, and metataxonomic and metagenomic analysis. Theoretical classes, with examples applied to viticulture and winemaking, were interspersed with hands-on training and an introduction to using Linux systems for bioinformatic computation.

This course in Logroño was the first opportunity for the Eco2Wine doctoral candidates to meet in person and to interact with some members of the Eco2Wine consortium. Dr Ileana Vigentini, Eco2Wine project coordinator, travelled to Logroño to give the students an overview of the project. Dr Ramón González, CSIC Research Professor at ICVV, and Dr Gustavo Cordero, Research Professor at the University of Cádiz, presented the career development and training platforms to the students. The Eco2Wine communication support team joined an online session to discuss their plans and attend the students’ presentations about their PhD projects.

However, one cannot visit La Rioja without experiencing the blend of tradition and modernity that comes together in the production of some of the most renowned wines in Spain. A technical visit was organised at the Torres Family’s winery, “La Carbonera”, an associated partner of the Eco2Wine consortium. Students were acquainted with the origins and typicity of unique wines in the Rioja Alavesa region. They learned about the extent of the vineyards, their locations and uniqueness, and the innovative processes to achieve singular wines: Las Pisadas and Malpastor. Afterwards, the group travelled to Haro, the wine capital of Rioja, to visit Bodegas Manzanos, a winery carved into the earth. Here, the students received training on the most traditional production processes of the region. Finally, they visited the laboratories, research facilities and the experimental winery of the ICVV, guided by Dr González and his colleague, Pablo Carbonell, who explained the main lines of innovation in viticultural research in the region.

“We hope that this course was a moment of learning and meeting for these young scientists on their way to achieve their doctoral qualifications and that they enjoyed visiting this region steeped in the tradition of winemaking, but also in innovation and modernity,” said Dr María de Toro Hernando, Manager of the Genomics & Bioinformatics Core Facility at the Fundación Rioja Salud and a key organiser of the event. “Cutting-edge research will be key to next-generation sequencing techniques that will open the door to the genetic and genomic study of the viticultural ecosystem, from the soil to the wine.”