Genetic, chemical and visible color profiling of teinturier grape varieties

As high yield sources of concentrated and widely variable anthocyanin pigment, teinturier grapes have great potential as coloring agents. Capitalizing on this potential for use in the production of goods with a specific color profile, such as beverages, foods and textiles, necessitates some ability to engineer the anthocyanin content of the berries that develop on the vine, and to predict how this color will correlate with the pigment derived by extraction. This research aimed to investigate the connection between the chemical (anthocyanin), visible (CIELAB) and genetic (microsatellite markers) character of varieties of teinturier grapes- with an eye to crossing varieties to optimize anthocyanin and color characteristics in successive generations- as well as to augment the information currently available about these varieties. Leaf tissue was used to collect microsatellite (SSR) data for eight allele pairs, while skin and pulp tissues were extracted in an acetone/water solution to obtain chemical and visible color data. Hierarchical cluster diagramming, one-way analysis of variance, multiple factor analysis and canonical correlation analysis were used to investigate possible relationships between genetic similarity and phenotypic anthocyanin makeup. The results of this experiment indicate that a relationship does exist among these characteristics for these teinturier grapes. Although further research should be undertaken to confirm these results, this makes the interesting suggestion that it might be possible to extrapolate the potential usefulness of a given variety in terms of its color profile based on the fruit hanging on the vine, or conversely, that berries with a given genetic makeup could be selected specifically with the knowledge that their pigments would produce an extract with the desired color profile.